


Knightober

by writeitininkorinblood



Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: F/F, Knightober, M/M, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 22,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeitininkorinblood/pseuds/writeitininkorinblood
Summary: 31 days of Knightober prompts!
Relationships: Gawain | The Green Knight/The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Nimue/Pym (Cursed)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 115





	1. Hero

**Author's Note:**

> 31 days of Knightober prompts: https://www.instagram.com/p/CEg3K6IFUfL/?igshid=1vhsmu0t8bafq  
> These are largely going to be unconnected and random and hopefully not too long. Most will be Gawain/Lancelot, but as you may be able to tell from the first one, not all :')  
> Tags will be updated as I go!

Iris had never had a hero. Her mother was killed soon after she’d first drawn breath and her father gave her up not a day later, handing her into the care of the Sisters at Yvoire Abbey. They’d seemed like godly women at first, bastions of faith, but it wasn’t to last. Abbess Nora had turned out to be as sinful as the Fey themselves, not practising the true teaching of god even as she preached them. She was weak. Sister Igraine had been the same. She thought herself so strong but Iris had always suspected that she never had been genuine in her faith; the revelation that she was a traitor working for the Fey had not been a surprise. So Iris burned the Abbey down. It was a den of dissolution, sacrilege and damnation, and certainly no home to heroes.

The Red Paladins certainly weren’t heroes. They drank and indulged in pleasures of the flesh and took their oath to the divine powers lightly, never focusing on the true mission of the lord. They were nothing but fools and they would have been lucky to have someone as pure as she was among their ranks, but they wouldn’t allow it. That was why Father Carden could not be her hero either. He couldn’t see the goodness in her, the way she was willing to carve herself out to let the empty space be filled with the light of god’s grace. All because she was a girl. And the Weeping Monk? He’d turned out to be the most damned of them all.

The Fey seemed to have an endless stream of heroes. The Green Knight, the Wolf Blood Witch, and now the Monk, whose infamous alias seemed to have stuck even after he’d changed sides. Iris wondered if they knew how readily they painted targets on their back by being so blatant and making themselves mythic. Killing them would damage the morale of every single Fey demon, and reconnaissance into their weaknesses was easy when they made their identities so loud and accessible even to their enemies. They shouldn’t have been the heroes of anyone with common sense, and they certainly weren’t hers. They were damned and they were evil and they were doing it all wrong.

It was when someone finally recognised what Iris could do that she realised who her hero was. When the Pope had proclaimed her a warrior of god and promised they’d accomplish great miracles, she finally understood. She didn’t need a hero; she was the hero. And she wouldn’t make the same mistakes she’d witnessed all this time.


	2. Cursed Sword

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prompt is just so perfect for Cursed :')

Lancelot was looking for Gawain. He had no specific reason to need him, no message to pass on or important question to ask, he simply wanted to see his boyfriend at the end of a long day busy with hard work. His first port of call had been their tent, which was by far his favourite place to find Gawain both for its proximity to their bed and the privacy that the canvas walls offered, but their home was empty of the one person Lancelot wanted to find. Undeterred, he opted for the second most likely place he’d find his lover.

Nimue was doing a remarkable job as Fey Queen considering her age and inexperience, but she couldn’t do it alone and often Pym, Kaze and Gawain would be with her in what had become the Throne Room but was really simply a large tent in the middle of their refugee camp. Lancelot had been summoned there plenty of times to provide intel on the Red Paladins’ movements and numbers and, more to his surprise, had been encouraged to join in the informal gatherings that Nimue and her friends had, where Gawain would tell stories from their childhood in Dewdenn until Pym laughed so much she snorted water out of her nose, or Kaze regaled them with tales far bloodier. It had taken Lancelot a while to get comfortable with the casual company but Gawain would sit close and encourage him to join in the conversation and eventually he had started to feel at home in the central tent. He didn’t think twice about walking in unannounced on his hunt, in a way he never would to someone’s personal sleeping tent, but found the space empty.

Sighing, Lancelot was ready to turn around and keep looking but he just as he went to pivot on his heel, a flash of metal caught his eye. The Sword of Power, the Devil's Tooth, the sword that had caused wars and claimed so much blood it sang with the stories of it, was sitting simply by a chair. He couldn’t help his intrigue as he crossed the room to look at it, taking in the runic engravings and metalwork so fine it could almost have been lace. It was grander even than his own sword had been before he’d filed off the Red Paladins’ insignia. 

The Sword of the First Kings almost seemed to hum as he leaned in closer, like it was buzzing with energy that was desperate to escape. He was reaching out to touch it, curious to see if it was vibrating with the same force, when the tent flap moved behind him.

He heard the swish of canvas and froze like a child stealing honey cake, ready to beg for forgiveness and promise he hadn’t been intending to steal anything, hoping it would be Gawain who had entered as he’d surely be the most lenient, but instead it was Nimue’s voice that cut through the tense silence.

“Go ahead,” she encouraged, without a hint of anger of disproval.

Even if it hadn’t been the most important sword in the country that he’d been caught lingering near, the Fey still did not entirely trust him with weapons. His own blade spent all its time in his tent and he limited himself to one hidden dagger up a sleeve or in a boot, when he’d once been armed to the teeth on every occasion. He could not deny it looked suspicious to find him like this.  
“Nimue, I didn’t-” he tried to explain, but she cut him off with a raised hand and a smile.

“I’ve often wondered what it would be like if you wielded it, or perhaps if Gawain tried. Someone who’d know what they were doing even without the Hidden to guide them,” she said, sitting down on one of the chairs and leaning her weight forward on her forearms as if eagerly anticipating a show.

Lancelot looked back at the sword, still humming and gleaming even if the dim light of the tent. It was certainly tempting, but he didn’t need the reminder that he wasn’t worthy.  
“I do not think they would answer me. Not after what I did,” he said softly. Sadly. The Hidden seemed like good friends to have around.  
“So go ahead. Try it. You’ve got nothing to lose,” Nimue shrugged, a mischievous glint in her eye.

She had a point. Failing to tap into the sword’s true power would not tell him anything he did not already know. And he was still a soldier, still a warrior at heart, despite his newfound dedication to agrarian work. He still felt most like himself when he was teaching Squirrel or sparring with Gawain, his body perfectly in tune with the blade in his hand. He would be a fool to turn down the chance to hold the most infamous sword known to man or Fey, even only for a few moments.

With one last look at Nimue, waiting for her to change her mind, Lancelot carefully reached out and closed his hand around the grip. It was cold against his skin, something he would have expected from most swords but not this one, and he was almost disappointed to find that its unnatural hum wasn’t physical. Regardless, he lifted it.

It was a beautifully made sword, well-balanced and comfortable in his hand. He would have be pleased to wield it in battle, did not doubt he could cut down countless enemies, but he felt no touch of magic. With the weight of it he was almost surprised Nimue could swing it with any accuracy, considering she’d be the first to admit she’d never been trained in melee combat. Clearly the Hidden really were with her.

He shifted his grip on the weapon so it lay flat over both of his palms and offered it up to his Queen, clearly its rightful owner.

“It knows it is not my sword,” he smiled ruefully. “I have not earned it.”

“And I have?” Nimue laughed, even as she took the blade from him and set it on the table. “The Hidden don’t seem to listen to my suggestions half the time either, I don’t think you need to worry about them having forsaken you just because you can’t raze the camp to the ground with one swing.”

“In any case,” Lancelot said, “I apologise for being in here alone. I was-”

“Gawain’s outside with Squirrel,” Nimue explained before he could even finish his sentence, grinning when she saw how baffled he was that she seemed to be able to read his mind. “You two are so rarely apart that it seemed obvious it would be him you were looking for.”

Trying to hide the fact his cheeks were hot with blush, he nodded and mumbled a goodbye and a thank you before quickly taking his leave. As soon as he stepped outside, he felt a breeze ruffle through his hair. It wouldn’t have been odd, he was outside after all, but it was accompanied by a dull itch in his hands. The feeling was faintly familiar and he looked down, confused. Sure enough there was a shroud of green, irregularly patterned like leaves, creeping up his fingers and over his palms. Nothing he hadn’t made happen before, but he could only do it when his hand was in contact with a leaf to pull the camouflage from. There was nothing around. Almost teasingly, the colour drained from his fingertips again in front of his eyes, and Lancelot felt something untwist inside him. The Hidden hadn’t forsaken him after all.


	3. Blessed Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This does some what veer from the prompt, but it spawned from the idea that none of the Paladins wear armour presumably because they believe their god will protect them, and is thud their 'blessed shield'

“Please wear it.”

They’d been having the same conversation for what seemed like hours and Gawain was slowly going insane. He understood Lancelot’s reservations, knew they were multi-layered and complex, but if his stupid, stubborn, audacious boyfriend didn’t listen to him then he was going to lose his mind. The armour he held in his hands was beautifully made. Gawain had commissioned it specially from the same Fey leatherworker who had made his own back at Nemos and it bore the repeated pattern of carefully stamped feathers, which Gawain thought perfectly symbolised Lancelot – his relatively newfound freedom, his light-footedness, and a certain kind of determination that could only be likened to a small bird after one’s lunch. It was fitting. Yet Lancelot was decidedly unimpressed.

“I don’t need it, it will only slow me down,” he repeated for the hundredth time.

Gawain groaned, growing tired of their dispute. He dropped down to sit beside where Lancelot was sharpening his sword, reaching out to still and take his hands so his lover had no choice but to focus on him.  
“You are an incredible fighter; I have never seen anyone with your skill and I doubt I ever will again. You are truly the greatest warrior the Fey could have asked for and I have felt your strength time and time again,” he raised an eyebrow to make it clear that he didn’t just mean on the battlefield. “But you are mortal, and all it takes is one blade between your ribs, one surprise attack. I cannot lose you.”

He held Lancelot’s gaze with his final closing statement, hoping the honest emotion would shine through. He truly did need the man to survive – their hearts were one now. Going on without him would be next to impossible.

“I’ve never needed it before,” Lancelot sighed, which was far more ground than he’d conceded before so Gawain swooped in on the opportunity.  
“The Red Paladins are filled with absurd ideas that their god will be their shield, but look how many of them have died because of their folly. I know it’s what you used to believe, maybe still do, but _please_ , for my sake, wear the armour,” he begged. “You can practise in it until you feel as comfortable with it as without it, I’ll spar with you as much as you need. I promise it won’t hold you back.”

Lancelot looked at him for a long moment before turning his attention to the cuirass at his side, picking it up and inspecting it carefully. It was truly beautiful, dyed black and so gently textured and engraved. And it matched Gawain’s, the shared handiwork more than apparent.

“You can wear it under your surcoat if you don’t want to be seen acknowledging the fact that you’re pierceable,” Gawain encouraged with a teasing smile.

“Will it make you happy?” Lancelot asked.

Gawain paused for a moment. He hated it when Lancelot did things only because they made others happy, rather than with any consideration of his own feelings, but this might just be the one occasion where he was going to have to be okay with that distinction. It was necessary.  
“It will keep you alive, so yes,” he confirmed.

“Okay,” Lancelot rolled his eyes, a trait he’d learned from Squirrel. “I will wear your pointless armour.”

In lieu of a thank you, Gawain just pulled him in for a kiss.


	4. Companion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some musings on Goliath, the best companion.

There was one person in the Red Paladin camp that Lancelot trusted wholeheartedly. None of his Red Brothers were entirely devoted to god’s service, they drank and bedded women and swore and took the lord’s name in vain. This was all just a game to them, in it for the bloodlust and the free lodgings and food. Lancelot couldn’t trust them with the true knowledge of his ancestry. They would never understand his complex relationship with god.

He came close to trusting Father implicitly, but there was a kernel of doubt. Because if he did as Father asked, he’d have to kill the children, and he couldn’t bring himself to believe the absurd notion that a child so young, so innocent, could possibly deserve the punishment of fire and sword. Something didn’t add up.

The one person Lancelot trusted entirely wasn’t even really a person. To most Red Paladins, a horse was a horse. A means of transport. They didn’t even have their own, riding whichever was most convenient from the nameless herd that the group kept. But Goliath was different. Lancelot had been looking after him for almost fifteen years, and he had never once given the man any reason to distrust him. He didn’t bolt, didn’t spook, didn’t kick. While the other horses were temperamental and moody, likely due to the relatively substandard care they got from the other Paladins, Goliath was overwhelmingly patient. On some level, he just seemed to understand. When Lancelot had been beaten so much every part of his body ached, Goliath would keep his strides slow and steady so he didn’t jostle him and cause him further pain. When Moycraig had burned and the sky had turned black and everything had been so startling and disappointing, Goliath had followed Lancelot into the words and bumped his gently with his snout when he sat on the ground with his head in his hands because he’d failed and Father was going to be angry and still all he could think about was how beautiful the Green Knight had looked standing there, so brave and so defiant. He hated himself for it. But Goliath was there to absorb his tears as he tried to wrench the sinful thoughts from his heart and stake them into the ground and leave them there.

It didn’t work. Goliath was the one Lancelot went to when he’d spoken to Gawain in Brother Salt’s Kitchens. He’d hidden his face in his mane for a while and tried to pretend he didn’t feel anything but resentment towards the Fey man, but he knew it was futile. Goliath just whinnied and flicked his ears and patiently waited for Lancelot to remember how to be a person again, rather than an emotional wreck.

When it was time to leave, there wasn’t anything Lancelot regretted leaving behind. His swords bore the insignia of the Paladins and he didn’t want to fight for them anymore, the few possessions he had were religious artefacts and tracts and he no longer had a use for them. The one thing he needed to take with him was Goliath. He knew he could trust the horse to get them somewhere safe. Even if he fell unconscious from the pain and the blood loss and Percival didn’t know what he was doing when it came to riding a horse, Goliath would keep going. Lancelot was certain that the horse would be gentle with the boy and, if he succumbed to his injuries, his one faithful companion could be trusted to take his newfound charge back to his people. He only hoped they would be kind to the beast once he got there.


	5. Training

Pym was holding the bow like she was worried it was going to turn into a snake.

“I’m really not sure this is a good idea,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “I’m just going to shoot myself in the foot. Literally.”

“I would be very impressed if you did,” Lancelot shrugged. “Considering we will definitely be starting with the pointy part facing the other way.”

She took the arrow he held out to her and appraised it sceptically, as if it was hiding some secret. They were using the most basic equipment the small, makeshift training ground had to offer. No one, least of all Pym herself, was trusting her with a carefully handcrafted Fawn bow just yet, and she’d been adamant that she didn’t want to damage Lancelot’s own weaponry, so she was left with one of the basic wooden bows they used to train the children. She was hiding quite how bitter she was that it was still the right size for her.

“You have no chance of hurting anyone. It may take a while before you hit the target, but the shots that you miss will hit the straw or the floor,” Lancelot reassured her. “And you did say you wanted to give this a go.”

“I did,” Pym conceded. “But I’d forgotten this part where I suck at it. I just sort of pictured myself immediately being able to hit an apple falling from a tree at seventy paces so I could impress-”

She cut herself off immediately, cheeks staining a deep red and her interest in the bow suddenly doubling. Lancelot was far from socially observant, not used to interacting with people enough to be able to understand them, but even he could not miss the blatant tells that Pym was interested in somebody. He recognised the desire to impress the person he loved with prowess in combat.

There were a lot of Fey at the camp and Lancelot would be lying to say he knew all of them, but he had a relatively trustworthy working knowledge of at least those who did not still despise him. There were plenty of men who could have captured Pym’s heart. He cocked his head to assess her curiously, wondering which one it was. The poor fool was going to have to suffer Gawain’s wrath if he wasn’t worthy, and likely get a stern talking to even if he was.

“Lancelot,” Pym growled, sounding more kitten-like than intimidating. “You heard nothing.”  
“Which man do you want to impress?” he asked bluntly, because couching words with social niceties was also a skill he’d never learned.

To Lancelot’s confusion, Pym just laughed, a little bitterly.

“Considering your choice of partner, that seems like a very narrowminded question to ask,” she pointed out.

It was Lancelot’s turn to blush. Gawain wasn’t his partner. They had kissed, something he’d made the foolish mistake of admitting to Pym, but they were hardly promised to be Joined. And certainly he’d hate it if anyone else kissed Gawain, or if he never got to do it again, or if their tent was empty when he returned home in a few hours’ time, but that did not make them partners. They were just… passing time. Together. Perfectly and blissfully content. He didn’t know what else had to be involved to be someone’s partner, but he did know he definitely didn’t have the right to claim Gawain as his own; he was far from enough.

Lancelot did have to accept Pym’s criticism. He should not have assumed anything.

“I’m sorry,” he said, entirely genuinely. “It is a woman?”

Pym groaned and pulled self-consciously on the end of her braid.

“It is _the_ woman. Forget it. She’d never look twice at me like that,” she sighed.

For a moment, Lancelot didn’t understand. Pym’s description hardly narrowed it down, other than shifting his focus to the other half of the camp as potential candidates. But then Pym revealed something far more helpful.

“It _was_ something. Almost. Before all this. Now she’s too far above me.”

It hadn’t taken much prompting, like she’d been desperate to share, and now Lancelot understood why. Pym couldn’t talk to her usual confidant if she was the one that would be being talked about. Which, apparently, left him as the one to lend an ear. He awkwardly reached about and patted her on the shoulder.

“She thinks of herself as Queen in name only,” he said gently. “She by no means would believe herself too far above you.”

Pym managed a sad smile for a second before it turned into a threatening glare.

“You dare say anything and I’ll-”

“Your words will never fall on the ears of another,” Lancelot promised. “Now, I believe you have a Queen to learn to impress.”

He gestured to the weapon still in her hands and she looked at it with renewed determination. She might not be able to learn to swing a sword like the Weeping Monk or the Green Knight, but perhaps this was attainable. She wanted to see the look on Nimue’s face when she could hit a target from across a field, wanted to be able to actually be useful next time conflict turned up on their doorstep. She would be the first in line to protect her Queen – after all, even if she didn’t realise it, Nimue was looking after her heart. It was in Pym’s own self-interest to protect that; she’d be lost with it gone. Turning to face Lancelot, she clenched her jaw and nodded sharply.

“Teach me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pymue ftw. They need more love.


	6. Strike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Lancelot is beaten, but in an amorphous kind of way with little if any description of the events themselves.

Lancelot didn’t remember the first time he had been struck. It seemed like he should, somehow, like it should stick out as some memorable and significant moment, but he’d been so young and it had happened so frequently from thenceforth that he didn’t really remember a time before it, only that there had been such a time. He’d never been beaten before the paladins.

His punishments seemed to have two motives. At first he’d been lashed because he had misbehaved; a scared and cornered child biting and scratching to be free, petulantly refusing to listen to Father Carden, defiantly staking his claim over his own Fey identity. All that had lasted no more than a month, each disobedience beaten of out him one by one. When a belt didn’t seem to do it, Carden used a whip, lacerating his skin. And then, when he still answered back, they rubbed salt into the wounds until Lancelot screamed.

He learnt to behave.

Even when his conduct was impeccable, far more pious than any of his Red Brothers, he still felt the sting of a whip. Father had explained to him how inherently damned he was, how evil ran in his veins and every second of his life had to be dedicated to his atonement for those sins or else he would feel the fiery embrace of hell for eternity. He had to beat himself, cut ribbons into his back, to remind himself of Christ’s pain, to share it. After a while he almost got used to the sting. It was calming, a reminder that he was alive.

When Father raised his hand to him for speaking up for Percival, it had been the first time Lancelot had been struck like that in almost a decade. Once he’d learned to behave, he’d halved the pain he had to endure; at least he was in control of how much it hurt when he had to lash himself. Percival’s life had somehow seemed worth the relapse into how much he been tortured before.

Lancelot hadn’t known that would be the last time anyone struck him, including himself. He left the Paladin camp behind him and later learned Father was dead, so there was no one to raise a whip or a belt or a hand against him. When he and the boy had found his way to the Fey camp, the Fey had been surprisingly kind to him. Well, one Fey in particular.

The Green Knight’s survival felt more like a bona fide miracle than anything Lancelot had ever experienced, and even more so when Gawain was initially the only one to defend him and carve him out a place for him at the camp. And it was Gawain who caught him, the first time since arriving at the camp that he’d tried to punish himself with the whip he had always kept in Goliath’s packs. The urge to hurt himself had been building up with each sin he’d been committing and every time he found himself desiring Gawain, his eyes lingering on his bare chest or his heart leaping into his throat whenever the Knight casually touched him. He felt himself more and more deserving of retribution. But Gawain, always where someone needed him, had found him and taken the whip from his grip and had sat down in front of him and comfortingly taken his hand, waiting patiently until he was ready to explain. It only took a moment before Lancelot broke down and told him everything. Gawain vowed to make sure Lancelot never felt the need to punish himself again, stroking his thumb across the Monk’s knuckles as he spoke.

Lancelot thought perhaps it would not be so bad to swap out the contact of a stinging whip against his back for the gentle touch of Gawain’s fingers. 


	7. Slay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playing it fast and loose with the prompt word here, but hey content is content right? :')

Despite her growing fondness for Lancelot, it still baffled Pym how readily Gawain let the man touch him. They were both private people but Pym was perceptive and nosy so she caught more of their intimate moments than most. Lancelot would trace his fingertips over the back of Gawain’s hand and lace their fingers together in the shadows around the campfire in the evening, shockingly gentle. And that was only what Pym had seen them get up to – she didn’t doubt that far more contact took place in their tent. Whenever she teased them about such things, their blushes spoke volumes.

She couldn’t quite understand it. Lancelot’s hands were weapons. They’d slain more than their share of Fey, by virtue of sword or bow but also of their own power, certainly. She had heard tales of him killing unequipped before. And yet Gawain trusted him so implicitly, let down all his walls and placed his life in Lancelot’s hands. Despite how much she really did like the Ash Man, Pym wasn’t sure she could ever do that.

Until she realised that she already did.

Nimue might not have killed as many or for as long as Lancelot, but Pym couldn’t deny that her girlfriend was lethal. Her connection to the Hidden was nothing short of miraculous and she could twist it to stifle lives at the quirk of an eyebrow. And certainly it was Red Paladins that had been the target of her powers but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be used on someone else, someone Fey. Maybe even a small, helpless, redheaded Fey.

Of course Pym knew she never would. She trusted Nimue completely and knew that the gentle touches her girlfriend traced across her skin would never turn deadly. It would be inconceivable to suggest that Pym was in any more danger in Nimue’s presence, indeed she felt safer that way. Despite how many horror stories she heard about what Nimue could do now.

It was only once she realised that her lover was probably as lethal as Gawain’s that she understood how he could be so relaxed with Lancelot’s hands on him, even knowing their death toll. Nimue could kill her. Without a second thought or a single person able to stop her. And yet Pym loved her utterly and beyond reason and perhaps Gawain knew how that felt too.


	8. Butterfly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little modern AU one-shot ^.^

Lancelot couldn’t understand why Gawain was so resistant to taking off his shirt. It was a shared aversion they had so he’d never pushed it, but he couldn’t help but be curious. He’d felt his boyfriend’s chest plenty, his hands wandering under clothing as they kissed, and he could say for certain that it definitely wasn’t anything he needed to hide. So far as he could tell, Gawain was practically perfect. He was in good shape from his swim training and certainly didn’t have raised, smoothed scars covering his back like Lancelot knew marred his own skin. But Gawain was polite enough that he’d never mentioned those marks, so Lancelot wasn’t going to bring up the conversation either. He had to have his reasons.

They’d been dating almost six months when Lancelot found out what those reasons were. They’d had a little to drink and things were getting heavy and Gawain almost seemed to forget that Lancelot had never seem him shirtless, pulling his top off with reckless abandon. As soon as he did, Lancelot’s brain just stopped. Far too much information had hit him at once and his ability to speak and move and close his mouth were all replaced with the overwhelming knowledge that firstly, Gawain was just as gorgeous as he had anticipated, and secondly, he had _tattoos_.

There was a Celtic tree of life, intricate and beautifully formed, stretching across his ribs, and a Claddagh symbol just over his heart, begging to be touched. Lancelot let out a strangled sound that couldn’t even be called a word by the most generous of people, reaching out to trace his fingers over Gawain’s chest.

“Oh, yeah,” Gawain laughed, a little sheepish. “I was going to show you eventually.”  
“They’re beautiful,” Lancelot breathed. “Why hide them from me?”

“These ones are fine. But…”

Gawain climbed off Lancelot’s hips so he could twist around and show his back. There was, as Lancelot had predicted, not a scar in sight, but there were more tattoos. On the back of Gawain’s shoulder blade there was possibly the most perfect one to represent his boyfriend – a deer skull complete with antlers in complicated and realistic greyscale. He wanted to kiss it more than he’d ever wanted anything, but he didn’t know if he was allowed and he didn’t know how to ask. But it wasn’t the only other art.

At the base of Gawain’s spine was a butterfly, far less well-crafted than the others, in what seemed to be once-lurid colours that had lost much of their vibrancy. It was the most stereotypically cliché tattoo and it looked so out of place on Gawain’s skin that Lancelot couldn’t help the little huff of laugher that escaped him when he caught sight of it.

“I know,” Gawain shrugged ruefully. “I’m going to get it removed or covered up, when I have the time and the spare cash. That’s what I was waiting for.”  
“Why?” Lancelot frowned.

“It was a stupid decision,” Gawain explained. “In uni when it never seemed possible to back out of a dare. I didn’t want you to know what an idiot I was. My taste in body art has improved; I hope you agree,” he laughed just a little.

“I like it,” Lancelot admitted.

And he did. It was sweet, somehow. Innocent. It didn’t quite go with the rest of the extraordinary pieces Gawain had, but that didn’t matter. The crude little butterfly told an origin story that Lancelot would never begrudge his boyfriend of and he was incredibly glad he had seen it. If Gawain wanted to have it covered up or removed then he would support him, but he definitely didn’t think it was anything to hide.

Gawain looked over his shoulder, clearly surprised by the words.

“No, you don’t,” he shook his head. “It’s crap.”

Reaching out to pet the butterfly’s wings, Lancelot shrugged.

“It’s part of you. I like you,” he explained. “You never need to hide your past mistakes from me.”

“You hide yours.”  
Gawain’s insinuation was painfully obvious and Lancelot squirmed. He did hide his past, there was no denying it, but it was different.

“My mistakes are not butterflies,” he muttered, averting his eyes so he didn’t have to see Gawain’s pity.

The sofa shifted as Gawain moved to stretch out beside him, their enthusiasm for intimacy replaced by something far scarier. Lancelot was a lot more afraid of Gawain seeing the extent of the marks on his soul, they went far deeper than the ones on his body. But Gawain just linked their fingers together, pressed a kiss to his cheek and rested his forehead against his temple.

“Perhaps not, but they’re still part of you. And I like you.”

He repeated the words but they didn’t sound stale or recycled, there was a fresh injection of love and support into them and it brought tears to Lancelot’s eyes. Because he knew what he was talking about. Even if he hadn’t seen the visual horror of it, Gawain had still felt the pronounced topography of his back, each ridge and valley of poorly healed scar tissue. He might very well change his mind when he knew the entirety of the truth but at least for now, he wasn’t running away.

Lancelot nudged Gawain a little, just enough to make him move so he could sit up. When he earned himself a complaining whine and grabbing hands for his troubles, he just shushed him and gently batted him away. Then he reached for the hem of his shirt and, with one last wave of white-hot fear, he pulled it up and over his head. Gawain’s silence said everything and Lancelot was ready to run, but just as he was about to leave, fingers encircled his wrist to still him and get his attention.

“They’re part of you, and I love you,” Gawain promised.

Lancelot didn’t quite believe it then, nor would he for the next two dozen times he heard it. But he started to when, just to prove his point, Gawain kept the butterfly tattoo.


	9. Mermaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real mermaids in this one, I'm afraid.

When Gawain had said to meet him at the river, Lancelot had been expecting a day of peace and quiet, the kind they liked to take away from the rest of the village sometimes, to just sit and be. The kind of day Pym would refer to as a ‘date’, while both of them inevitably blushed. It was probably an accurate description though – they’d talk softly or sit in comfortable silence, and their fingers would knit together and Lancelot’s head would make a pillow of Gawain’s chest and look up at the sky and wonder how any god could forgive him enough for his past to let him be so lucky. As dates went, it was always rather nice. So, carefully avoiding letting Pym see him slip away, Lancelot had headed to their normal meeting place.

Only Gawain wasn’t there. Normally he’d be waiting, leaning against the tree closest to the bank so casually, like he belonged in the forest, but he was nowhere to be seen and it put Lancelot on edge. He couldn’t help but reach for the dagger in his sleeve, never unprepared for a fight. Assuming the worst was a rather morbid but necessary way to live. When he hear a noise from the water, he span immediately towards it, blade brandished.

“I’d rather not spar when I’m unarmed and without armour,” came a laugh, and Lancelot focused enough to realise the figure who’d made the noise was familiar.

Gawain climbed out of the river with a surprising amount of grace, before ruining it entirely by shaking his hair like a dog and covering Lancelot with a fine spray of water droplets. He would have been annoyed, but he was distracted. It was rare he got to appreciate Gawain’s bare chest in the daylight and he was taking the chance to map every scar and every muscle while he could. His legs weren’t to be overlooked either, clung to almost obscenely by hose, the only piece of clothing Gawain had decided to wear for his apparent dip in the river.

“Are you done with your swim?” Lancelot asked, once he’d gathered together enough brain cells to work his tongue again. “I can come back.”

“I was rather hoping you’d join me,” Gawain admitted, the tone of his voice revealing he was well aware it was an unlikely scenario.

Lancelot took a step back in surprised. He couldn’t swim. Rivers were for washing oneself and washing clothes and though the Red Paladins had larked about plenty in the shallows, not that he’d ever joined in, they didn’t swim. From the looks of it, this part of the river was too deep to stand in and reach the floor and Lancelot felt the creeping shadows of panic just at the thought.

“I don’t…” he began, but Gawain’s hand was already taking his.

“I know. I can teach you. I taught Nimue and Pym when we were kids, and neither of them have ever drowned. You’ll be a regular mermaid in no time,” he joked, but rather earnestly.

“I prefer land,” Lancelot said resolutely.

“I would not let go of you for a second.”  
If there was one person Lancelot trusted, it was Gawain, but he was also trying to learn to make decisions for himself when he didn’t want to do something. It was a message Gawain himself had been trying to impress on him and perhaps it was time to exercise it a little.

“No. Thank you,” Lancelot decided.

Gawain, to his credit, backed down.

“Okay,” he accepted, pressing a kiss to back of Lancelot’s hand as a silent reward for knowing his own mind. “Will you sit, then? Put your feet in?”

That, Lancelot would tolerate. He let Gawain lead him to the water’s edge and sat to pull off his boots, before dipping his feet into the cool water just as Gawain jumped in dramatically, purposefully splashing him just a little. Rolling his eyes, Lancelot kicked a small wave of water in the direction of his lover, smirking when it hit him directly in the face as he surfaced.

“You’re so lucky I’m a knight,” Gawain huffed.

“And why is that?” Lancelot laughed, playing along.

“Anyone with less honour would have pulled you right in with them,” Gawain explained, swimming over to Lancelot and putting his hands on his knees to prove his point.

If Gawain had been anyone else, Lancelot would have worried that the words would have been immediately followed by a demonstration, but instead Gawain just moved to push himself up on the riverbank either side of his hips so he could kiss him quickly, his wet hair brushing against Lancelot’s cheeks, before dipping back down into the water.  
It wasn’t quite the date Lancelot had expected, but he couldn’t deny that the coolness of the water around his legs was a pleasant respite from the heat of the sun, or that Gawain’s company was anything but enjoyable. Particularly when he was such an agreeable sight to look at. Lancelot wondered, as he watched Gawain swim across to the other bank, how long it would be before he was persuaded to join him. Because he really didn’t think it would take much.


	10. Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU - sort of a tie in to my Pride and Prejudice fic (but set way in the future)

There hadn’t been a moment for Lancelot to say he wasn’t comfortable with this. Well, that wasn’t true. There had been plenty of moments. Nimue had suggested it and Squirrel had begged to come for at least twenty minutes and then there had been another fifteen while Pym had been hunting for one specific shirt that said ‘resting witch face’ across the front and the whole time he’d been sat on the sofa next to Gawain, an old rerun of _Friends_ playing on the television. He’d had more than half an hour to voice the concern that he didn’t think he’d like going to a haunted house.

Gawain had been slowly introducing him to all the pop culture that he’d missed out growing up and while _Final Destination_ and _The Texas Chain Saw Massacre_ had been grim experiences Lancelot wasn’t in a hurry to repeat, they’d only made it twenty minutes into _The Exorcist_ before he had begged Gawain to turn it off. There was just something about ghosts that wormed its way under his skin and sent chills through his veins. He’d been raised to believe souls went to heaven or to hell and the idea of them lingering either suggested they were more powerful than god himself, or that they were so depraved that even hell would not admit them. Even after Gawain had swapped the horror movie for Disney’s _The_ _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ , Lancelot’s newfound favourite, and explained patiently that there were no such things as ghosts, Lancelot hadn’t wanted to dwell on the idea.

That had been three months ago and either Gawain had forgotten or he hadn’t realised that a haunted house would be just as traumatising for his boyfriend. Everyone else seemed so excited to go and Lancelot didn’t want to spoil anyone else’s fun – if he didn’t go then Gawain probably wouldn’t either. So he bit his tongue and tried to smile and nod whenever anyone spoke to him, not risking words with how much fear had churned his stomach. He didn’t even allow himself to take Gawain’s hand, usually such a form of comfort, since the bone-crushing grip he’d have would certainly alert his boyfriend that something was wrong.

Regardless of his attempt to hide his reservations, he couldn’t quite suppress the horror on his face when they piled out of Gawain’s car at the site of the attraction. It certainly had a high budget. From what Nimue had been excitedly explaining on the journey there, the company rented out the abandoned manor for three weeks a year and made the whole experience feel incredibly authentic. It was clearly popular – there was a queue that snaked back and forth for a considerable distance. Lancelot almost wished they could have just gone straight in, like ripping off a bandage, but instead they joined the queue and were advised it would be a forty five minute wait. He gripped the metal of the queue partitions, trying to stop the shaking of his hands.

It seemed like it was an effective experience if the screams coming from the manor were anything to go by. At first he’d thought they might be pre-recorded to add ambience, but they were too irregular to be on a loop and they certainly sounded genuinely terrified. Lancelot felt his stomach drop. Despite his best attempts to hide his fears, Gawain paid too much attention to him to miss them entirely and after about ten minutes stood in line, Lancelot felt a hand on his arm. He jumped in surprise, fight and flight response already engaged, and that was the final clue that Gawain needed to tell him something wasn’t right.

“Girls, hold our space, would you?” Gawain asked lowly, not taking his concerned gaze off Lancelot. “We’ll be right back.”

Pym had some clever retort on her tongue but Nimue had also realised something wasn’t quite right and squeezed her girlfriend’s hand to keep her quiet.

“Of course,” she said, with a gentle smile for them both.

Lancelot couldn’t even bring himself to protest as Gawain led him out of the queue and a little way away from the bunching of people so they had some privacy.

“You don’t want to be here, do you?” Gawain asked with a sad frown. “I’m sorry, I should have realised it wasn’t your thing. Or at least asked.”

“No!” Lancelot tried. “It’s fine. I’m happy to-”

“Sweetheart,” Gawain interrupted him.

He took Lancelot’s hand and let it rest on top of his between them, both of them watching as it tremored uncontrollably. Then he wrapped it safely up between both of his and pressed a kiss to it.

“It’s alright. You don’t have to,” he promised.

“I’m just nervous, I’ll be fine,” Lancelot said, not wanting Gawain to miss out because of him.  
The words were familiar. Lancelot found that his hands often shook to betray his nervousness at the worst possible times – the first time he’d been properly introduced to Gawain’s sister and son, the first time he’d had to stand up in court and testify to the torture he’d experienced at Red House, the first time he and Gawain had shared a bed.

“No,” Gawain argued. “I know you too well for that now. This,” he squeezed Lancelot’s hand, “may just be nerves, but you’re whiter than the ghosts in there will be and your heart is beating way too fast. And I should have remembered how much you hate things like this.”

Lancelot didn’t have much of a counterpoint and he just kept his eyes on the floor, feeling like a disappointment.

“It’s okay, really. We all have things we’re afraid of,” Gawain reassured him.

“Even you?”

“Oh, definitely me.”

“You can still go,” Lancelot gestured towards the house. “I don’t mind waiting for you.”

Gawain just shook his head.

“How about we leave the girls the car keys, get an Uber back, send the babysitter home early and let Squirrel pick the movie for the evening,” he suggested. “He definitely won’t pick anything with ghosts, but I can’t promise you won’t be forced to watch _Guardians of the Galaxy_ for the fifth time in two weeks. And we can eat our way through half the sweets we bought for trick-or-treaters?”

Lancelot laughed for the first time since Nimue had first suggested the haunted house. Even though neither of them had ever voiced it, Gawain knew that Lancelot loved cosy nights of the sofa, with Squirrel wedged between them and commenting obnoxiously on the film, and Gawain’s arm stretched across the back of the sofa so he could tangle his fingers in Lancelot’s hair and stroke circles with his thumb. It was so wonderfully mundane and homely and everything Lancelot had never allowed himself to hope for that it was his favourite way to pass an evening.

Overwhelmed with quite how much he loved his boyfriend, Lancelot stepped forwards to hug him tightly.

“Thank you,” he mumbled against Gawain’s neck. “I’m sorry I ruined your evening.”  
“Nonsense,” Gawain whispered back. “As long as you’re okay, my evening will be perfect.”


	11. Magic

Nimue knew how to shatter the earth with her magic. She could bend it to her will and snap the carefully tensioned strings of reality with one thought. It was an undeniably useful skill, and one she would be a fool to wish away when it had endured the survival of her people, but she didn’t always want to snap strings. Sometimes she wanted to play them and see what melodies she could encourage to sing.

Small things were far more difficult, as it turned out. It was easier to raise a man from the dead, to whip the air into a hurricane, to slaughter two dozen Red Paladins at once, than it was to bring healthy green glow back to a browned and crisped leaf. That was what she started with, and it had taken her a week to control her powers enough to focus them down onto one thing. Without the sword her abilities weren’t quite as amplified but even so she usually ended up sending all the leaves in the clearing into a swarm around her. She made sure to practise when she was sure she didn’t have anyone’s attention focused on her, when she could escape to somewhere anonymous and free of judgment. It wouldn’t be good for morale to advertise the extent of the Fey Queen’s weakness.

After hours of frustration and concentration, she finally managed to bring the colour back to the leaf sitting in the middle of her palm, but that was only step one. She had an endgame in mind and step two involved something a lot more complicated than a leaf.

Breathing life back into a flower took more effort than conjuring a tornado out of nothing. It was like all the power she’d usually use still hit her, straight in the chest, but rather than redirect it all on some external target she was instead left to absorb it all and feel it sap the energy from her. Gawain would always ask, when she made it back to camp after her practise sessions, if she was feeling okay, her exhaustion written on her face. It was undoubtedly unwise to be expending all her energy on such a trivial matter – even if they weren’t actively fighting a war at the time, they could still be ambushed at any given minute. But this felt important, somehow.

It took twice as long to master reviving the flower as it did the leaf. Exhausted as it left her, Nimue couldn’t help the smile that crossed her face. Step two was complete. Step three involved repeating step two over and over until she was sure she could reliably pull it off again. And step four? Well, step four was the one she was most anxious about.

Convincing Pym to follow her into the woods was the easy part. She complained a lot and asked her usual hundred questions, but she still traipsed through the forest with Nimue’s hand clasped around hers. They made it to Nimue’s usual practise clearing and Pym crossed her arms expectantly when it became evident they were stopping.

“So?” she asked. “What did you need to show me fifteen minutes away from camp?”

Nimue didn’t give a verbal answer, instead bending down to pick a flower from the smattering that covered the grass. She deliberately went for one that had seen much better days, wilted and browned and clearly half dead. Satisfied with her choice, she straightened up to hand it to Pym, who accepted it sceptically.

“Thank you? I think?” she ventured, confused by the dead flora. If this was Nimue’s way of saying she wanted to break up then it was painfully cryptic. Also Pym had plenty to say about that decision.

“Just wait,” Nimue said gently.

She wrapped both of her hands around Pym’s and focused all her attention on the flower, her eyes falling closed as she pleaded with the Hidden to hear her and to obey her, feeling the Fingers of Airimis snake across her skin. It was only when she heard Pym gasp that she knew something had happened, and she opened her eyes to be greeted with a flower more vibrant than any of her previous attempts, a vivid yellow with a deep purple centre. Nimue gently released it from Pym’s grip and carefully it gently behind her girlfriend’s ear, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“You’re a sap, I hope you know that,” Pym mumbled, clearly holding back tears as she rushed forward for a hug and buried her face against Nimue’s shoulder, cautious not to crush the flower. She was planning on keeping it pristine for as long as it lived.

She’d expected days, or maybe even hours until it started to look dead again. It had been picked after all and even in water she knew it wouldn’t last forever. Except it did. Decades later it still looked as fresh as the day Nimue had revived it, and if that didn’t feel like a blessing from the Hidden then Pym wasn’t sure what would.


	12. Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't keen on the idea of a weather kind of storm because that's done a lot, so this happened instead :')

Nimue wasn’t quite sure how she’d become the agony aunt of her friend group. Or perhaps not the agony aunt, since she was certain she rarely gave any decent advice in return, but she seemed to be the one people went to when they needed someone to lend an ear to their grievances. Apparently that was the kind of things monarchs did, so perhaps it was good practise.

She’d be stood in her tent, poring over a map or some papers, and someone would storm in. After a while she didn’t even need to turn around to work out who was doing the storming. Pym would huff dramatically and stomp to purposefully try and make her footsteps louder than they were, what with her short stature. She’d be babbling about what was annoying her the second she stepped inside and Nimue knew that she’d want a hug and her hair braided and to be allowed to say her piece and air her frustrations about whatever was bothering her, be it the complete ineptitude of her new trainee healer, or the fact that Gawain and Lancelot still wouldn’t just talk to each other, or the fact she hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in two weeks.

Squirrel equally wouldn’t hide his annoyance as he stormed in, although he wouldn’t purposefully emphasise it. He’d just walk in entirely announced, come right over to Nimue and wrap her in a hug so tight she couldn’t move her legs. She’d gently pet his hair and try to decipher the words he mumbled into the fabric of her dress. Usually it was complaints that Gawain wouldn’t let him learn to fight properly yet or sad confessions that he’d overheard people mocking Lancelot and hadn’t stepped in. She’d let him talk and she’d give advice best she could, but mainly she made sure to remind him how thoroughly important he was to them all, and how much they loved him.

When Lancelot first stormed into her tent, Nimue would have been lying to admit that she wasn’t, for the tiniest second, terrified. He could probably kill her in less than thirty seconds and no one else in the camp be any the wiser of it, especially if she didn’t have her sword. She came to realise it wasn’t his intention to scare her, he was just naturally silent and stealthy. If she ever felt a breeze against the back of her neck when the tent flap shouldn’t have even been open, it would be because Lancelot had stalked in and had sat himself down in the corner to brood. He didn’t even want to talk about what was bothering him – and she had asked, at least the first few times. He just wanted company while he waited for his frustrations to cease enough for him to return to the camp. It was a strange way to pass the time, but Nimue grew to rather like his visits. She would talk to him even if he rarely responded, and it seemed to help. Eventually she was able to get the odd word out of him when she asked what was wrong – people in the camp were harassing him or Pym wouldn’t stop teasing him about his fledgling relationship with Gawain. She’d promise not to get involved but she’d always keep a closer eye on him around the camp to make sure no one was crossing lines they shouldn’t, and she’d have a quiet word with Pym about toning things down. Lancelot had been through enough already.

Gawain’s own personal brand of storming into Nimue’s tent was not dissimilar to Lancelot’s. He was almost as quiet, but couldn’t supress his breathing quite as well so she could always tell them apart. And once she asked him what was wrong, he could talk a thousand words a minute about whatever had vexed him. The stupidity of some of the elder teenage boys practising with real swords rather than wooden ones and getting hurt, the dishonest soul who’d pilfered the communal food supply for personal gain. The fact the Red Paladins and Cumber’s raiders and King’s army could all be building up their forces again and they were just sitting ducks, waiting to be slaughtered. But Nimue had known Gawain longer than most, so she was well versed in calming him down – he needed to plan. They’d sit and strategize out whatever needed to be done to fix the problem until he could relax.

Every now and then she’d get apologies from her friends for the way they would storm in to her space and take advantage of her free time, but she would never begrudge them her attention when they needed it. After all, they were her family now.


	13. Flower

It was entirely possible Gawain hadn’t thought it through when he’d picked the little bunch of wildflowers. They’d just reminded him so much of Lancelot, so defiant and resilient, all reds and oranges and yellows clustered together at the base of a tree not far from camp. So he’d picked some. But now he was holding them out to Lancelot, it was possible he was having second thoughts.

“Here, these are for you,” he explained, sticking to his guns. It couldn’t possibly be construed as an insult to receive flowers, surely.

Lancelot tentatively reached out and took the posy, eyeing them suspiciously like they held secrets they weren’t telling him. Apparently no one had ever given him flowers before, although that was hardly a surprise.

“Thank you?” he said, the confusion in his voice clear.

There was no conceivable reason why Gawain would give him flowers. Sometimes he gave plants to Pym but those were ingredients for use in her healing work and Lancelot had never seen him hand over anything like the bright little blooms he now held in his hand. Why pick them at all? Now they were just going to die. Except Lancelot supposed that you picked berries and fruits and vegetables to eat them, and Gawain was always complaining that he didn’t eat enough and needed to value his life enough to sustain it, so perhaps these flowers were known for their nutrition. Fey ate weirder things.

He separated off one stem and turned it over between his fingers before he raised it to his mouth, but before he could take a bite, Gawain’s hand was on his arm, stopping him.

“No! They’re… you’re not supposed to eat them,” he explained pathetically.

He’d hoped the gesture would be understood. Maybe that the Paladins had given flowers to women they’d courted, or that Lancelot had seen some Fey partake in the custom since he’d arrived at camp, but apparently luck was not on his side. At the very least he wanted to make sure Lancelot wasn’t poisoned by his gift.

“Oh.” Lancelot blushed a little, feeling foolish. “What are they for, then?”  
“Well… When you… It’s tradition for…” For a man to give flowers to someone he finds attractive. Gawain’s cheeks burned at just the thought. He couldn’t admit to it like that. “It’s stupid. Don’t worry about it.”

He turned to go, confident Lancelot would no longer try to eat the definitely inedible flowers and do himself harm. If he threw them away, not understanding the significance of being given them, then Gawain’s heart would just have to bear it. Better that than it being wrenched out entirely by a rejection of his advances.  
“I don’t understand,’ Lancelot called after him.

The sad tone in his voice tugged at Gawain’s heart and almost convinced him to stay, but it was better for them both if he didn’t so he just put on a fake, casual smile and turned over his shoulder to reply.  
“Forget about it.”  
*

Lancelot did not forget about it. When Gawain had handed over the flowers he’d seemed so shy, so self-conscious, in a way that he never normally was. They had to mean something significant. If Gawain was refusing to tell him then he’d have to ask someone else, someone he could trust not to laugh at him for not understanding something that was probably incredibly commonly understood. Squirrel might not even know himself, so he was ruled out, and it was likely something too trivial to bother the Fey Queen with, so Nimue was off the list too. Which left Pym. It wasn’t exactly a conversation Lancelot was joyous about having, but he wanted to get to the bottom of his conundrum so, with a sigh, he headed for Pym.

He found her carefully darning the knee of a pair of hose in the last of the day’s sun, sat on one of the logs around the communal fire. She looked up and offered him a quick smile and a greeting, but quickly went back to her work as he took a seat beside her. Normally he wouldn’t have disturbed her, but this matter seemed pressing.  
“What does it mean when someone gives you flowers?” Lancelot asked, shuffling awkwardly.  
“Someone gave you flowers?!” Pym shrieked, launching her mending into the air and turning to focus all her attention on him, barely noticing when it fell back down to clock her in the side of the head.

Her gaze zeroed in on the bunch of wildflowers in his hands, a clear sign of affection if she’d ever seen one. It was not the response that Lancelot had been expecting – apparently being given flowers was a big event. He felt bad for underplaying it earlier; Gawain must have thought he’d react rather differently. But he still didn’t understand exactly why.

“Apparently they’re not for eating,” he explained to Pym quietly, laying out what he’d discovered so far.  
She just snorted.

“No, they’re not. They’re to look at.”  
“Look at?”

That didn’t make any sense. He could look at them for far longer if they remained growing in the ground. Why pick them and cut short their beauty.  
“I’ll explain if you tell me who gave them to you,” Pym bargained, mischievous smile on her lips.

It was incredibly risky but Lancelot hated not understanding Fey culture and giving one name seemed like a small price to pay for the answers he was seeking. He trusted Pym, deep down.  
“Gawain,” he admitted, keeping his voice down so no one could overhear them  
“I knew it!” she practically squealed, a delighted grin on her face.

True to her word, once she’d calmed down, she did explain to him exactly what it meant to be given flowers. Lancelot sensed his cheeks getting redder and redder and he felt awful for rebuking Gawain so casually when he was trying to do something nice. To indicate he was interested. Lancelot couldn’t help but study the flowers, admiring how delicate they were and inhaling a little to appreciate their sweet fragrance. Gawain had chosen them for him, and collected them and brought them back and sought him out to present them. The whole thing made Lancelot feel a little lightheaded and he was rather glad, on some level, that he hadn’t understood when he’d first been given them as he was sure it would have been entirely too much and he would have made a fool of himself. Still, he was going to need to find a way to properly thank Gawain and assure him that his interest was certainly not unrequited. 


	14. Flame

It seemed destined that fire was always going to be a central part of Lancelot’s life. When he’d been with the Paladins, fire was a weapon. It was a way to murder, to destroy, to smoke out survivors so they had no choice but to give up their hiding place or face choking to death, ash coating their lungs. It was the avenging light of god, cleansing the scourge of the Fey from Brittania’s lands. He could never be afraid of it, the warmth of the flames felt like the touch of the angels against his cheeks when he stood too close to what was left of a Fey village. It freed them from their damned existence. It freed Lancelot, too. When the lashes against his back weren’t enough, he’d heat a metal rod from Brother Salt’s Kitchens in the flames until it glowed, filled with god’s forgiveness, and then he’d press it to his chest, listening to his skin crackle and sear until he couldn’t stand the pain anymore, left with the reminder of his sins.

After Father Carden was dead, after Gawain, after Squirrel, Lancelot’s opinion of fire began to change. For a while he avoided it, hating the echoes of the screams that seemed to weave themselves through the sparks of the campfire. He didn’t want to remember what he had done. But after a while, the screams started to quieten – once he had addressed his past and owned up to his mistakes and vowed to make amends. Then he didn’t mind the campfire so much. If nothing else, it was usually where he’d find Gawain of an evening and there was something so warming about sitting beside him besides the communal fire, and the heat didn’t come from the flames, it came from inside him. And, after the first time Gawain had reached out and set his hand down almost casually beside his to make it look like an accident when their fingers brushed together, it came from him too. Then every point of contact between him and the knight was a conduit for this comforting, affirming, addictive warmth. It was so monumentally different from the prickles of heat Lancelot felt left behind where Gawain touched him when they were in private, but it was just as intriguing. 

Flames didn’t mean death and destruction anymore. Instead they were where he’d usually find his family, where he laughed the most and ate good food in good company. And, when the night’s revelries drew to a close, Gawain would light a torch from the fire and take his hand, the gently flickering flames leading them safely through the camp to their tent. Fire didn’t destroy anymore, and Lancelot couldn’t be more glad, because this new life he had was the last thing he ever wanted to see reduced to ash.


	15. Serpent

When Gawain made a noise Lancelot had never heard before, his first reaction was one of deep concern. Because Lancelot had heard the quick hiss of air Gawain would drag in through his teeth when he cut his hand or stubbed his toe, the huff he’d let out when he was the butt of a joke, the muffled moans he’d usually try to stifle with a pillow or the back of his hand because tents weren’t soundproof. He had heard it all and any new noise would be an interesting curiosity, but this one? This one was a scream that seemed so out of place coming from his lover’s mouth. It would have been more attributable to Pym, normally, and to hear it from the Green Knight meant something had to be wrong.

They’d been washing their clothes in the river close to camp, stripped down to nothing so everything could get a thorough cleaning, and Gawain had taken several steps away to hang his tunic over the branch of a tree to drip dry. Now he was clutching the same garment to his chest, staring in fear at the ground several metres away. In no more than a moment, Lancelot was at his side.

“Are you hurt? Should I get Pym?” Lancelot asked frantically, terrified that Gawain must been in immense levels of pain to have screamed like that.

But Gawain didn’t even turn to look at him, fixated on a branch on the floor. Or, at second glance, not a branch. There weren’t enough angles to it, it curved too gracefully. It was a grass snake, maybe three or four feet long, and it probably wasn’t particularly pleased to have been disturbed by the big Fey men hanging laundry. But that didn’t explain why Gawain had screamed.

“It’s just a snake?” Lancelot said, confused. “It won’t hurt you.”

Gawain finally looked up, disbelief and doubt clear in his eyes.

“Are you… afraid of snakes?”  
Lancelot had to ask the question because all the evidence was pointing that way, but it didn’t make much sense. Gawain wasn’t afraid of anything. He’d be happy to face the entire King’s army singlehandedly for the sake of his family, he had endured torture without so much as a thought towards breaking, he’d stared the murderer of his people in the eye and shown him compassion without a single flinch. How could one snake turn him to stone like that.

“No,” Gawain hissed, but he certainly didn’t seem to be telling the truth.

It took Lancelot taking a step toward the animal to snap Gawain out of his panicked trance. He grabbed his lover’s arm, fingers probably clutching too tight but in his defence he was terrified. Because snakes were bad news. If there was one thing the Christians had gotten right in that book of theirs it was that snakes were to be blamed for all the evil in the world and they weren’t to be trusted and they were dangerous. And now Lancelot wanted to get closer to one? Absolutely not. The person he loved more than anything on earth was going absolutely nowhere near a snake on his watch.

“If we both just stand here staring at us, it’ll just stare right back,” Lancelot tried to reason. “I’m just going to encourage it to leave us alone.”

The idea that they should actively and willingly interact with the creature shocked Gawain enough that Lancelot could slip out of his grasp and get close enough to the snake that he could see the pretty pattern of its scales. It was a rather beautiful animal, even if subtly so, but Gawain wasn’t going to be back to normal until it had headed back in to the undergrowth. So Lancelot stamped his foot a little and, just as he’d suspected, the snake immediately darted back into the grass and out of sight. Thankfully in the complete opposite direction of Gawain. As soon as it was gone, there was a hand around his wrist dragging him away from the edge of the trees.

“Are you crazy?!” Gawain protested. “What if it had bitten you?!”  
Lancelot just shrugged.

“They are not venomous. It might have hurt a little but I have had far worse injuries.”

Gawain pulled a face that spoke volumes about what he thought of Lancelot underplaying his pain, but he didn’t want to get into that discussion right then and there.

“I did not know you were afraid of snakes,” Lancelot added softly.

“I’m not!” Gawain protested, a little too forcefully to seem casual. “It’s just common sense. They’re-”

“Harmless,” Lancelot interrupted with a smile, pressing a kiss to Gawain’s cheek. “It’s okay. I like that there is something that scares you, Green Knight. It’s a reminder that you are real, after all. And I promise to protect you from all the entirely harmless and really rather beautiful snakes.”

Gawain just glared at him and turned to stride back towards the river to finish up the last of their laundry, leaving Lancelot to admire the view. A fear of snakes was unexpected, but endearing, and if Gawain thought himself any less a warrior for having an irrational phobia then Lancelot was going to have to make sure to convince him otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay but fight me on this if you disagree because Gawain is definitely canonically afraid of snakes and I won't hear otherwise. "A water snake has more soul than a human being" - what did water snakes do to you, buddy?


	16. Water

When Pym had the idea that she and Nimue should take a day off to spend on an expanse of sandy beach with the ocean stretching out in front of them and no Red Paladins or Kings or swords, her first thought was how they could possibly sneak away without ending up with Squirrel in tow. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the kid – he could be rather persistent so it was practically impossible not to – but he certainly wasn’t what anyone would call relaxing. They’d taken him to the beach before and it had ended in complete and utter exhaustion, mentally and physically. He’d want to swim in the sea and run down the sand and ask endless questions, and Pym wanted to sunbathe and admire her girlfriend in peace.

She probably shouldn’t have unloaded him on Gawain and Lancelot for the day, mainly because she was certain she’d be hearing complaints from Gawain about it when he found exactly what she’d done, but they were Squirrel’s two favourite people and when she’d not so subtly mentioned that they were going for a walk through the forest to check the snares and traps, the boy had quickly volunteered his own assistance. And the two men always did struggle to say no to him. It was very possible that they’d planned for it to be a date of sorts of their own and she’d ruined it, but they always seemed to find time for one another and it wasn’t fair that Nimue never seemed to be free. Admittedly it was Pym’s fault for dating the Fey Queen, but that shouldn’t mean they didn’t get at least a little freedom.

With Squirrel otherwise occupied and Nimue’s calendar cleared of any council meetings or impending disasters, Pym whisked her away. She made up all sorts of reasons for why they were trekking along the beach, away from the camp and determinedly towards a rock cluster that would separate them from the eyeline of anyone on watch once they passed it. Spinning clearly fabricated tales about ships and strange things washed ashore that Nimue just _had_ to see, Pym knew she was hardly being convincing. Nimue was indulging her. And, very possibly, she wanted and needed a day off just as much as Pym did.

Once they rounded the rocks, Nimue raised an exaggerated eyebrow.

“I don’t see any strange objects,” she said, barely hiding a fond smile.

“Oh I can fix that.”

Pym pulled a blanket out of her bag, spreading it across the sand and topping it a wineskin and a small cloth-wrapped parcel filled with honey cakes from Cora, who was always happy to cater a lovers’ picnic.

“Strange enough?” she asked with a heavy dose of cheek to her grin.

“Pym,” Nimue sighed, despite how touched she was by the plans. “I have too much to do and-”

“Not today,” Pym argued. “Today you have nothing to do. I made sure of it. Part of your job as Queen is to make sure your citizens are happy, right? Well I’m a very unhappy citizen who can only be appeased by a day with her girlfriend.”

Nimue found herself smiling at the faux petulance on her face, taking Pym’s hand and kissing the back of it.  
“Anything for my people,” she laughed.

But then she dropped Pym’s hand and headed towards the water, earning herself an indignant whine.

“But cake!”

“One moment,” she promised.

Toeing off her shoes at the edge of the small waves lapping at the sands, Nimue stepped forwards to submerge her feet below the waterline, the gentle current curling around her ankles and reminding her of the waters that had brought her home after her fall. It was rare she got a chance to thank them, but she let the feeling fill her heart and sing through her body. She hadn’t felt so peaceful in weeks. And when Pym’s arms wound round her waist, a bony chin on her shoulder, she thought to thank the sea for taking such good care of her love too, while she was with the Raiders. Despite everything, there was a lot to be grateful for, and the ocean felt like it was certainly responsible for a good portion of it. Her gratitude expressed, Nimue turned in Pym’s arms.

“Okay. Cake,” she agreed.


	17. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cloyingly sweet fluff!

Gawain had known he was in love with Lancelot for two months. Normally he wouldn’t have been one to keep quiet about that – no one else at camp needed to know, certainly, but under any other circumstances he would have made sure that Lancelot heard it. Especially since it _was_ Lancelot, who probably needed to hear how loved he was more than anyone, since he’d been so cruelly denied the comfort of hearing it from someone who spoke the words genuinely, probably for as far back as he could remember. Gawain wanted to tell him, wanted to reassure him how deeply he was cared for and how insistently his presence mattered. But he didn’t seem to want to hear it.

It was like Lancelot knew when he was about to bring it up. When they were alone together and they’d settled into a comfortable silence, Gawain would find himself tracing over the birthmarks on Lancelot’s cheeks and looking at those beautiful eyes of his and the words would be just on the tip of this tongue, ready to spill out and fill the air around them with the hazy connotations of forever and family, and Lancelot would pick that exact moment to kiss him or, worse, to get up and shatter the tableau entirely. It has been easy to pass it off as coincidental, at first. Lancelot had never been the biggest fan of silence, even when it was just the two of them, and it was normal for him to break it when he found it too heavy and imposing, full of the undistracted past clawing at the edges of his memory.

Eventually it went far past coincidence. Two months was long enough. Even when he’d realised that Lancelot was willingly dodging hearing the sentiment, rather than just accidentally ruining the moment, Gawain understood that perhaps he needed a little time to settle in to the first relationship he’d ever had, and he was willing to be patient. But there was nothing wrong with being told you were loved, and since Lancelot seemed to have no complaints about still being in the relationship, there was no reason Gawain could conceive as to why he wouldn’t want to hear the words from him specifically. It was time to confront him about all the evasion.

Only two days went by before they were alone in their tent again, lying together in bed and basking in their mutual afterglow. Gawain figured it was as good a moment as any – perhaps Lancelot would be too distracted to interrupt him. He had no such luck. As soon as he opened his mouth, Lancelot surged forwards to kiss him to block his words and usually Gawain wouldn’t be resistant to that, but this was just yet more proof that his suspicions were correct. He put his hand on his chest to stop him.

“I know this is all pretty new for you,” he began, trying not to be deterred by the frantic fear in Lancelot’s eyes. “But I just really need you to know that I-”

“Stop.”

Lancelot clearly didn’t think Gawain was going to heed the verbal request, so he’d teamed it with a physical barrier and reached out to cover his mouth. He looked so panicked that Gawain didn’t even think about childishly licking his palm to get him to remove his hand like he would if Pym or Nimue had tried the same thing. It turned out he didn’t need to, as Lancelot moved back away himself after just a few seconds, curling up and not making eye contact.

“Why won’t you let me say it?” Gawain asked, getting straight to the point.

There was a long moment of silence. He’d almost given up on expecting an answer at all when eventually he heard the faintest mumble of one, barely spoken loud enough to travel the short distance between them.

“I do not deserve it.”

Gawain’s heart broke. Instinctively his fingers found Lancelot’s hair, brushing through the curls and almost petting him in an attempt to provide comfort without overwhelming him with contact.

“Yes, you do,” he said firmly. “And even if you won’t hear me say it, you have to know that it’s true anyway? I wouldn’t be here in bed with you if it weren’t. I wouldn’t be happy having the entire camp knowing I share my life with you.”

“It will hurt less when you leave if I never heard you say it,” Lancelot reasoned, and if Gawain’s heart had broken simply in two before then now it was smashed to splinters.

“I am not leaving. Not now, not ever. Unless you ask me to,” he promised gently.

Lancelot seemed resistant to the idea that he’d be the one to request the separation, reaching out to take Gawain’s hand and hold it tight.

“It will not be me that asks you to go. You will just realise I am not a good person.”  
Shaking his head, Gawain shuffled down so he could pull Lancelot into an embrace.

“I know you. I have seen you at your worst. I know what you are capable of and what you have done and I know that it isn’t who you truly are in your heart or who you want to be,” he explained, fingers tracing patterns on Lancelot’s bare skin. “That is why I love you. Because despite everything you have been through, they could not change your heart.”

Lancelot inhaled quickly at the words, so casually dropped in the middle of the sentence. Gawain hadn’t even meant for them to slip out like that, cursing himself internally. They were still true and he still thought Lancelot really should hear them, but maybe it wasn’t the best time.

“I’m sorry,” he winced. “I didn’t mean to- I do. I mean it. But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

When Lancelot nodded, Gawain felt the motion rather than saw it.

“You are too good for me,” Lancelot sighed.

Gawain just snorted.

“We both have our pasts and mine certainly isn’t unblemished. I have been cruel, I have made bad choices. Wrong choices. I’ve taken lives and wasted them. I dare say I’ve broken a few hearts. But this is not one of my wrong choices, and your heart is one I would never break. If you ever decide to trust me with it.”  
He said the words not to guilt Lancelot, but to reassure him. These was no caveat to his love confession that it was only validated if returned in kind. He understood if Lancelot needed more time. But to his surprise, a hand fell back over his mouth, silencing him from speaking further.

“It has been yours for a long time. It was never safe with me anyway,” Lancelot admitted, almost shyly. “Even if you deserve better, you have my love.”  
“And you have mine,” Gawain smiled. “There is nothing better, no one I’d rather have beside me. I really do love you, Ash Man.”

It wasn’t quite how Gawain had planned it to go down, but nothing ever unfolded as planned with Lancelot around. There was an innate unpredictability about him – it was part of what made him a great fighter, a maddening debate partner, and it was definitely part of what Gawain loved. They certainly had more to talk about, because he couldn’t bear the idea that Lancelot still thought so little of himself, but at least they’d straightened one thing out. He finally knew he was loved, and Gawain resolutely decided to never let him forget it.


	18. Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tie in one-shot to this fic, where Lancelot and Gawain end up with many kids :') :https://archiveofourown.org/works/26138575

Squirrel seemed to have settled in to being a big brother with tremendous ease, never once complaining about the oft-crying child that now lived with him, or the fact that he was no longer the sole recipient of Gawain and Lancelot’s attention. Instead he doted upon his little brother, carving him toys to play with and carrying him around the village to meet people and talking to him near-constantly. Gawain joked often than Tristan would be learning to speak as soon as possible, just to request the boy give him some peace and quiet.

His topics of conversation were varied and often nothing more than stream of consciousness nonsense, but Gawain liked to listen in every now and then, particularly enjoying the many things Squirrel would tell Tristan about their extended family and friends. Nimue, Pym, Kaze and Arthur all made frequent appearances. He’d never really heard much of his own name, though, until Squirrel had insisted he be allowed to tell the child a bedtime story and had set himself up next to his crib in the master bedroom. Gawain had left him to it, but when the words ‘Sir Lancelot’ and ‘Sir Gawain’ fell on his ears, he couldn’t help but linger in the doorway, unseen but curiously following the story. It was certainly about them, although, as it normally went with Squirrel’s stories, it was rather embellished. He’d only been listening a few minutes before Lancelot came home from visiting Pym, and he immediately turned to gesture to him to keep quiet, beckoning him over.  
“What’s he talking about?” Lancelot asked, his mouth right next to Gawain’s ear so he could be as quiet as possible.

“Us, I think,” Gawain smiled.

They both listened as Squirrel’s story unfolded. It clearly had its roots in reality – they were both knights now, after all – but he was mixing in liberal doses of fiction. When Carden’s name came up, Gawain immediately reached for Lancelot’s hand to squeeze it tight in reassurance, but in Squirrel’s version of events, the priest was a dragon and Sir Gawain was supposed to be rescuing Lancelot from a tower, only to find that his damsel in distress was no damsel and certainly not in distress, and the two knights teamed up to vanquish the evil dragon from the realm, saving all of Britannia.

“I’m not sure he was paying attention. This isn’t how I remember it,” Lancelot murmured, earning himself a gentle elbow in the ribs.

“I know he wants to be a knight, but he certainly has the makings of a bard,” Gawain mused.

“Do you really think I don’t know you’re there?” Squirrel huffed. “At least be quiet if you’re going to listen.”

He turned around to offer his fathers a judgemental eyebrow raise that he’d definitely learnt from Nimue.  
“Sorry kid,” Gawain said sheepishly. “We’ll leave you to it.”

He tugged Lancelot away from the door and into the main living area of their humble little abode, sitting down in front of the hearth. They could still hear Squirrel’s words floating through from the bedroom, but too mumbled to properly understand. It was a strange little family they had, but it was certainly nothing Gawain would ever trade in for anything else. All the dragons they’d had to fight to get to this easy, comfortable domesticity were more than worth it.


	19. Carry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No prizes for guessing the inspiration :')

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Lancelot made a terrible patient. He wasn’t even technically yet a patient, since Gawain would hardly consider himself much of a healer, but he was being terrible about it either way. At least he’d stopped squirming.

When he’d gone over on his ankle, slipping down a hole probably left by a rabbit, they’d both assumed it was nothing and Gawain had even let himself smirk as he’d reached down a hand to haul his boyfriend back to his feet. Usually he was the epitome of stealth, with an unnerving cat-like grace, so it was almost nice to see him a little clumsy. And Lancelot would never admit it, but his misstep had been result of a distraction – Gawain’s had been smiling that specifically crooked way he did when he was really, genuinely happy and it warmed Lancelot up inside every time just to know he’d caused it, and he’d been too busy dwelling on how overwhelming love felt to pay attention to his feet.

It was only when he’d taken a step that he realised something was wrong. Pain flared up in his ankle and it felt like something was moving amongst the sinew and bones, and that certainly wasn’t good. The surprise of the feeling had it showing on his face and suddenly Gawain stopped laughing and was wrapping an arm around his waist to support him, asking a quickfire round of questions to diagnose him best he could. From the level of pain, Gawain could tell it was bad. Ignoring both Lancelot’s requests that he was fine to go on with their planned hunting trip and his refusals to be carried, he unceremoniously picked him off his feet and started off back in the direction of the village. And Lancelot had wriggled and protested and complained, but Gawain wasn’t putting him down and that was made concretely clear. Eventually they’d come to a compromise and Lancelot had begrudgingly consented to accepting to letting Gawain carry him on his back, arms loosely around his neck and legs hooked around his waist, with strong hands holding his thighs. It was slightly more dignified than being carried like a maiden across a threshold on her wedding night which… Lancelot purposefully didn’t think about that. He was no maiden, but he didn’t _entirely_ hate the image.

“I can walk,” he grumbled, chin resting on Gawain’s shoulder.  
“You said that five minutes, took one step and collapsed again,” Gawain hummed, barely acknowledging the thinly veiled request to get down.  
“I’m sure it’s fine now,” Lancelot tried.

He felt Gawain snort and pat his leg, bordering on mocking him.  
“Broken ankles don’t just fix themselves, my love.”

The epithet did strange things to him every time Gawain used it. He felt a little lightheaded, although perhaps he could blame that on the pain. But he wasn’t sure he could do the same with the burst of happiness in his chest. Still, Gawain was using it on purpose to get him to stop whining and he knew it. He’d be insulted, but he’d heard the words plenty of times without the ulterior motive so he knew there was a blinding truth to them that still confused him. Regardless, he’d still rather not have to cling to his lover like a clumsy, demeaned sloth.   
“It’s not broken,” he protested.  
“Why don’t we wait and see what Pym has to say about that,” Gawain suggested, already envisaging their evening. They’d visit the healer and she’d confirm his fears and bind his ankle, and Lancelot would crush his hand as she did but not make a peep of noise in pain because he’d always been taught to conceal weakness. Then Gawain would take him home and put him to bed and bring him food and sit with him and wonder how the hell either of them were going to make it through weeks of him being the worst patient ever. But he was the worst patient _and_ the love of Gawain’s life, so somehow they’d mange.

“I think I’d know. It’s my ankle,” Lancelot huffed.

He’d given up on truly arguing, since Gawain clearly wasn’t relenting and he was in no state to put up much of a fight, physically or verbally. The dull pain radiating up his leg and down to his toes was clouding much of his brain.  
“And yet I still trust Pym’s word more,” Gawain said, cheerfully. “Humour me, my love. At the very least.”

There were those words again. _My love_. Lancelot knew Gawain never wanted to hurt him. He’d protected him against an entire village of Fey who’d so gladly see him dead, he’d shown him compassion regardless of the torture he was undergoing at the time, he’d seen through his past and welcomed him into his community, his life, his bed. If he was subjecting him to this, it was because he really thought it was for the best. So Lancelot kept his complaints to grumbles under his breath and pressed his lips to Gawain’s neck, not quite a kiss but a sign of his, begrudging, compliance.


	20. Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short one :)

The first time Gawain had said it, they’d both been half asleep. Lancelot had just about woken up, still in that hazy, confusing space where nothing quite made sense yet because his brain wasn’t switched on. He was just about conscious enough to seek out the warmth of Gawain’s body, curling closer against him to chase it. His shuffling woke his lover and the arms around him tightened. Slowly, Gawain’s eyes had blinked open to find Lancelot backlit by the soft glow of morning light permeating the canvas walls of their tent.

“Morning, my angel,” he mumbled, brushing his lips against Lancelot’s bare shoulder.

At the time, Lancelot hadn’t thought much of it. He’d registered it as a pet name, although not the one of the usual options he got called, and that had been nice and warm and comforting, but he hadn’t been awake enough to properly _hear_ it. Until Gawain said it again, several days later when they were finishing up tending to their horses and sitting on the fence that surrounded the small paddock.

“Come on, angel, let’s head back.”

And then a week after that, when Lancelot had cut his hand slicing vegetables and blood had quickly coated his palm. Gawain had quickly wrapped the wound in a cloth and was ushering him out the door and towards the healer’s tent within moments.

“It still baffles me that you’re clumsy, angel,” he’d laughed gently.

Lancelot wasn’t an angel. He was nowhere near. His entire life he’d been called a demon and a devil and the spawn of Satan himself, but certainly never an angel. In the Paladins’ eyes he was a traitor and a monster, in the Fey’s he was a murderer and the evil figure that haunted their nightmares. And yet, somehow, in Gawain’s he was a force for a good. A divine light. Nothing confused Lancelot more.

It wasn’t a frequently used term of endearment – he tended to get ‘my love’, which he certainly wasn’t going to complain about, and rarely got anything except his name in public, which he was secretly grateful for. ‘Angel’ was saved for gentle moments, when Gawain could tell he most needed to hear it. It was hardly about to singlehandedly undo every cry of ‘demon’ Lancelot had ever had thrown his way, but it might just be a start. And if nothing else, it surprised him enough to make his brain put itself through a reset. If he was starting to overthink, to get overwhelmed by his memories and the realities of what he’d done, all it took was that one word from Gawain to spark a shutdown, putting a swift end to whatever damaging thoughts he was entertaining. At least until next time. Still, he’d take any respite he could get and Gawain seemed to know exactly what he was doing, usually paring the words with soft lips against his temple and a warm embrace. It was in those exact moments that Lancelot wondered how he had gotten so lucky, considering, if just for a moment, that perhaps he had an angel of his own looking out for him up there after all.


	21. Demon

Demon was a word Lancelot had heard plenty in his life, and in all variations. Devil. Satan. Monster. He’d heard it from the Paladins for as long as he could remember, was raised on it until he accepted and internalised it. Even once he’d left with Percival and Father Carden was dead and he’d found an unsteady new life, the words still followed him. They were whispered behind his back, haunting the shadows and teasing him with memories of his past. He was grateful his newfound family didn’t let the words get close enough to let them sting.

When Gawain said it, it had been an accident. Lancelot knew it was a slip of the tongue, that he didn’t mean it the way everyone else did. But it still hurt. Although he had to admit it had been his fault, at least to a degree. He’d repeated something he’d heard from Pym, something purposefully risqué and indecent, with the hope of convincing Gawain to take him to bed without him having to ask, because he hated outright asking, and in response he had gotten a wide-eyed look of surprise, melting into a smirk. And then Gawain had said it.

“Oh you’re secretly just a devil, aren’t you?”

He hadn’t meant like Father had meant it. Like the Tusks growled and the Moon Wings whispered when they thought he couldn’t hear. But it still stunned him, freezing him in place like he’d been physically hit, rather than just punched in the chest by the words so hard all the air had rushed out of his lungs. It took Gawain a couple of seconds to realise what he’d done, but once he did the teasing smile fell from his face and was replaced immediately with anguished regret.

“No. That’s not what I meant,” he insisted. “You know I don’t think you’re evil or demonic – your heart is good, my love, and I will never believe otherwise. I… I’m sorry. I misspoke.”  
“It’s okay,” Lancelot forced. “I know.”  
And he did. He knew Gawain loved him, perhaps against the man’s better judgement, and he knew the intent behind the words hadn’t been to hurt him, but he couldn’t shake the bitter feeling that coated his tongue and the unease that sank into bones. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for any degree of intimacy and, once they’d made it back to their tent, he curled up as small as he could make himself and faced the wall of the tent. Gawain seemed to understand that he just needed a little time to shake the grip of his memories and largely left him to himself, laying a gentle hand on his hip as he climbed into bed beside him as a reminder that he wasn’t alone. Five minutes later, Lancelot rolled over and burrowed into his arms, hiding against his chest. Smiling, Gawain kissed his hair and stroked a hand down the ridges of his spine.

“Goodnight, my angel,” he whispered, well aware the words couldn’t cancel out what he’d said before, but needing to get the sentiment out anyway.

When Lancelot just hummed and wriggled closer, he was certain he’d said the right thing this time.


	22. Sun

Everyone told Lancelot and Gawain that they needed to get more sleep. Between training the children and helping to run the camp and guard duty and looking after Squirrel, half of the Fey were convinced neither man ever got a single moment of rest. They even each recognised how tired the other was, reiterating the common observation of the lack of sleep but failing to, or at least choosing not to, recognise it in themselves. It took Pym forcing them to take themselves out of the bounds of the camp for the day, swearing particularly convincingly that she would personally be the one to fight them if she saw them return before supper, for them to actually take even a break.

It was a nice break, they both had to admit. They found a sunny clearing and laid down to sunbathe for a little, stripping down to their hose and finally relaxing. Which was all going perfectly, until the lack of sleep really did start to catch up with them. Gawain would later argue that they couldn’t help taking a somewhat extended nap – it was warm and comfortable on the grass and Lancelot’s head was resting on his chest, his soft hair just the pleasant side of ticklish. It was serene and felt half like a dream while they were awake so slipping across the veil of consciousness hardly seemed like much of a difference.

It very much made a difference. Had they been awake they probably would have had more of a chance of realising that they were both slowly going very red – they weren’t exactly pale, spending a large portion of their time outside as it was, but lying under the most direct path of the sun at the hottest time of day, baring skin that was usually covered, really wasn’t ideal. When they woke up four hours later, their mistake was immediately clear. Their skin was just starting to seize up and tighten uncomfortably and it was an angry, blistering red. Throwing their clothes back on to cover most of the worst burning, they rushed back to camp. The entire journey back Gawain tried to weigh up their options: Pym absolutely would have some salve that would soothe the worst of the burns – he didn’t doubt her abilities. She would also, however, have plenty of teasing and laughter for their fates too, which was so vastly undesirable he couldn’t put it into words It was a close call, but eventually Gawain sighed and righted their course for the healer’s tent as soon as they made it back to the edge of camp.

He had not underestimated the teasing.

“Why Gawain, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush this much,” she greeted him, barely holding back her laughter.

“I swear to Arawn, Pym, I will kill you,” Gawain growled in return. “Don’t think I don’t blame you for this.”

That was, arguably unfair, but she had been the one to make them take the day off in the first place so he was sticking to it. It was Lancelot who put a stop to the healer’s retort.

“Do you have something that would help? It hurts,” he said quietly.

Gawain and Pym both turned to stare at him in disbelief. He never expressed pain he was in, never asked for help to avoid it. He might have stopped actively hurting himself, but Gawain had long suspected that he still thought he deserved to endure it. That he was asking for something to reduce it was certainly no insignificant step.

“Yes, of course,” Pym smiled softly. “Give me a minute, I’ll make you something.”  
Without a word more of teasing, she went to her well-stocked ingredients shelves and started pulling down vials. Gawain just took Lancelot’s hand and squeezed it, proud. He pressed a gentle kiss to his very red cheek and moved to whisper in his ear.

“While you’re in the habit of asking for things, if you need some help applying whatever Pym gives us then I am more than obliging.”

It was a testament to how much Lancelot blushed that Gawain could still see it under the sunburn.


	23. Moon

Nimue had always been a fan of the full moon. Even as a child she’d sneak out to sit and watch it at night, feeling comforted by its presence and talking to it like it was an old friend, which didn’t exactly do much to help the ever-swirling rumours that she was a witch. When Dewdenn had burned and the sword had sang to her and everything had changed, she’d embraced the title of Witch almost as much as she had Queen. Because queens weren’t meant to sit outside in the middle of the night, burying their bare feet in the soft soil and staring up at the moon. But witches? Witches could do whatever they wanted.

Once the Fey had established a camp again and things seemed to be tentatively calm, one of the first things Nimue made sure to do was to resume her communes with the moon. It was calming, letting go of all of her secrets and most suppressed emotions and giving them over to someone who she knew could keep them safe. When Lancelot explained Confession to her, it felt a lot like that. The moon was the first to know that she had doubts she could do all of this, the one she told about the small looks and soft smiles that Lancelot and Gawain had been sharing, since she couldn’t bear to gossip about something so personal to them when they clearly were so new to it themselves. When she’d realised her own feelings for Pym weren’t as platonic as they once had been, the moon had been the first to know about that too. And the first to hear about their first kiss, their first night together, the first time they’d actually admitted the extent of their emotions. Things she wouldn’t even tell Gawain, her brother in all but blood ties, for weeks because they felt so fragile and so precious. But the moon wouldn’t crush them, would protect them as carefully as she did herself.

Everything was changing. The politics, the landscape, the rulers. The allies, the enemies. More often than not Nimue could hardly keep track, and by the time she’d wrapped her head around one new situation, another was already unfolding. But the moon was a constant. Every month it would wax and wane and she could trust it to be right where she expected it, and at just the right time. It was dependable, and there was a lot to be said for that. It was non-judgemental, ever-listening and all-knowing. It was just the companion a witch needed to keep herself sane.


	24. Stars

They were on guard duty when they saw it. Despite Pym’s teasing that they shouldn’t be trusted alone together, they made rather a good pair on the job. Lancelot had been raised to respect the importance of focus and concentration, and Gawain was wholeheartedly committed to ensuring the safety of his people. If anything, they each encouraged each other to be better. But occasionally there was room for a few moments of simple peace – nothing like what they would get up to alone in their tent; Gawain was sure if he let himself kiss his lover he would be thoroughly distracted for a not insignificant amount of time. Far longer, certainly, than a group of Red Paladins would require to storm the camp. But after two hours of nothing but wildlife he decided to allocate them both a quick break, shuffling over to lie back and rest his head on Lancelot’s legs, admiring the stars and ignoring the eye roll he caught in his periphery.

“We are working,” Lancelot pointed out.

Gawain would have found it far easier to take him seriously if he wasn’t already running his fingers through his hair. So as it was, he ignored the comment. Instead he raised a hand to point to the shimmering mass of points of light above them, so bright once the lights of the camp had been extinguished for the night.

“Arawn,” Gawain said. “Just there, those three bright stars, and then up to his arms and head, and down to his legs.”

“You see people in the sky?” Lancelot asked, confused.

“Constellations,” Gawain hummed. “I think the man-bloods have them too, but a little different than ours. Fey constellations are usually from Fey myths.”

“They never taught me.”

Lancelot didn’t have expand on who ‘they’ was. There was so much the Paladins hadn’t taught him. As with so many of those gaps in his knowledge, Gawain was happy to help fill them. He raised his hand once more and traced out the shapes he’d once learned from Lenore, naming them and explaining their stories. He was half way through tracing the stars that made up the sword that now rested in Nimue’s tent when a small bolt of light trailed right through it. Smiling, he closed his eyes. Wishes for peace, for the safety of his loved ones, for a long life and a family all bubbled up, but he picked one that seemed trivial enough to wish for but important enough that he’d like it come true: for Pym to please listen to him just this once and stop teaching Squirrel the worst of her teasing remarks. A little respite would be bliss.

“What did you wish for?” Gawain asked once he’d sent his thoughts off into the sky after the star, nudging his lover gently in the ribs.  
“Sorry?” Lancelot blinked, clearly confused.

Evidently this was another knowledge gap  
“When you see a shooting star, it’s customary to wish for something.”  
“Why?” Lancelot asked, his brow furrowing further.

Gawain’s first response was to laugh. Because there was no real reason, but he’d never really considered that before. Lancelot always made him question things he’d always taken for granted. Once he’d been encouraged to think for himself and ask why he thought the things he did, the former Paladin had embraced the notion with open arms and now had to know the root of _everything_.  
“It just is, I suppose,” Gawain smiled. “Can’t hurt to put wishes out there.”

Lancelot considered it for a moment before seemingly coming to the same conclusion, fixing his eyes on the stars and focusing intently for a moment. Gawain had half a mind to ask what it was he’d wished for, but that wasn’t how this worked. And regardless, life was just fine at is was, he decided, whether wishes came true or not. He had his family and his friends, he had his lover, he had his health, and his people were safe. For now, that was enough.


	25. Forest

Lancelot had always felt most at home in the forest. There was no one to look at him, to pass judgement on his failures, to stare at his birthmarks; even God’s vision was obscured by the tree canopy. It was the one place he could truly just be. He took every opportunity possible to spend his time in the woods rather than in the Paladin camps, regardless of the lack of properly cooked meals or mattresses or tent canvas above his head at night. The never-ending anonymity, the spartan comforts, the baseline of danger – it just felt oddly homely.

He should have realised when he returned the boy to his people and submitted willingly to their imprisonment of him that he’d wouldn’t get to see the forest. They were certainly being nicer than he deserved and he wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, being abused as their captive, but they did keep him inside, hidden away from the majority of the Fey, while they worked out what best to do with him. As far as he was aware his execution wasn’t on the table and for that he was grateful, but after four days of only seeing the same four canvas walls of a tent, he was getting anxious to experience the outside again. The next time he saw his overly benevolent guard, he couldn’t help but ask.

“Green Knight-” he began, but he didn’t make it much further.

“Gawain,” the man corrected reflexively, setting down the food and waterskin he’d brought.

Lancelot couldn’t bring himself to repeat the overly familiar name, instead just nodding in acknowledgement and continuing on.

“How long am I to be kept here?” he asked quietly, well aware that he was lucky to still have his life and that asking for anything else was unreasonable.  
“Until Nimue tells me otherwise,” Gawain shrugged, sitting down on the spare chair. “Why? Are you alright?”

He looked the Ash Man over critically. There was enough food to go around at camp and Gawain was making sure he ate his share, so he didn’t look starved. His wounds had been awful but Pym had seen to them best she could when the other healers had refused and his body seemed to be mending well. Nothing immediately jumped out at him as a cause of suffering.   
“I am fine,” Lancelot sighed, having received the answer he expected.

Only Gawain wasn’t buying it.

“Lancelot,” he prompted, his voice level.

Now that he’d brought it up he wasn’t going to get any peace until he revealed the truth, that much was clear. Gawain had always pushed for him to stop burying his pains and to be honest about them. It was just so far from what he’d been taught, so far from how he expected to be treated as a prisoner. Not that the Paladins took many prisoners – they tended to opt straight for execution. But Gawain was not and would never be a Paladin, and maybe he’d understand. His whole styling as the Green Knight had him at home between the trees too.

“I miss the forest,” Lancelot mumbled, eyes cast down to the floor.  
“Oh.”

It certainly wasn’t what Gawain had expected. He’d been the one proclaiming that Lancelot was one of them, had fears and emotions and opinions like one of them, rather than the monster others claimed him to be; but it was one thing to know something in theory and another to see evidence of it. Lancelot looked small and withdrawn and _sad_ , and Gawain couldn’t bear it. There was every chance this could have been a trap and he was walking into it with worrying willingness, but the Ash Man had no reason to think him stupid enough to go through with it. And he wasn’t stupid exactly, just weaker to the serving of Lancelot’s whims then he knew he should be. So he stood, gestured for Lancelot to follow him, and moved towards the back of the tent. Going out the front would earn them far too much attention, but this would be more discreet. Well aware he was showing Lancelot exactly how to escape, he untied the canvas of the tent in the corner until he could pull it up far enough that they could slip through. Outside they were met with a dim twilight, the moon full enough to light the way.   
Lancelot could have run at any time. He knew it, Gawain knew it. But he didn’t want to and Gawain didn’t seem worried he would, instead leading him a little away from camp until they were surrounded by trees, everything quiet enough to allow him to believe he was out alone in the forest. Because somehow Gawain’s presence wasn’t unwelcome. It didn’t shatter his comfort at being back where he felt most at home, even if he usually preferred no company but his own. Closing his eyes, Lancelot breathed in the familiar life of the woods – the damp air, the trees, the flowers that littered the forest floor. When he opened them again, he found Gawain looking at him with an odd sort of smile.

“Thank you,” Lancelot managed.

“Anytime,” Gawain promised. 


	26. Wolf

Nimue had been through a lot. She had lost her mother, had found out she’d been lied to about the identity of her father, and had ended up in the centre of a war, wielding a sword that had shaped history and inspired legends. It was, undeniably, rather too much to heap onto the shoulders of one seventeen year old, even if Gawain and Kaze were sharing as much of the burden as she would allow them. Despite their best efforts, they all worried she’d had to grow up all too suddenly and were quick to indulge her whenever they could. She could have all the extra honey cake, days off and lazy mornings that she asked for, not because she was Queen but because she was still, at heart, little more than a child.

But when she brought home a wolf cub, she was really pushing it.

They couldn’t argue with her when she claimed she’d felt sorry for the small creature. It was soaked through to the bone and little more than a skeletal shadow of itself. Big paws and big eyes, but the smallest, softest ears and nose were impossible to say no to, at least for Pym, and she gave in quickly to Nimue’s begging and looked over the cub. It didn’t seem to have any external injuries but had certainly been abandoned, and they set up a cushioned bed next to the fire so it could get warm and went about searching for something it would eat.

Gawain just watched from a distance, baffled that the two girls thought this was a good idea. Squirrel too was already fawning over the pup, but at least Lancelot was by his side still.

“Someone should tell them that thing will have their throats out as soon as it’s old enough to realise it has teeth,” he mumbled, mostly to the Ash Man.

“She is the Wolf Blood Witch,” Lancelot pointed out.

“Because she killed them, not because she’s their Queen too,” Gawain scoffed.

“Tell that to the wolf baby.”

And, truth be told, Lancelot had a point. Because the creature was licking Nimue’s hand and looking up at her with the most adoring, trusting eyes a living thing could manage. She had certainly saved the pup’s life and it seemed to know it. There was absolutely nothing he could say to convince her to return the thing to the woods.

“I can’t believe we have a wolf now,” Gawain groaned.

It was one more mouth to fill, one that would probably eat a lot, and something else that was going to necessitate extra rules, since even if it grew up to trust Nimue there were still plenty of Fey at camp that it would likely happily see as food. But evidently they did indeed have a wolf now. It might eat them out of house and home, terrorise half the camp, and constantly wear down at Gawain’s remaining sanity, but no one was going to be the one to tell Nimue that she had to give it up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wolf baby: https://dailywildlifephoto.nathab.com/photos/10465-wolf-cub-in-conversation-03-25-2018


	27. Pumpkin

Despite Squirrel’s best attempts to follow Gawain around like a shadow, it hadn’t taken him long to realise he didn’t enjoy guard duty. Sitting on watch with nothing much to do but sharpen an already deadly blade wasn’t the kid’s idea of fun, and it was one of the few activities that Gawain was allowed to enjoy in peace these days. Which was probably for the best, since guard duty very much entailed being the first one to confront a threat, and he’d much prefer it if Squirrel was nowhere near the front line of that fight.

Instead the boy would spend Gawain’s watch shifts getting under someone else’s feet – usually Nimue or Pym or, increasingly, Lancelot. The Ash Man was unsteadily integrating into the Fey camp now, enough so that Gawain didn’t worry about leaving him alone anymore. Not that he particularly _wanted_ to keep his distance. While he was more than aware of how much of a terrible idea it was to be getting personally involved with a person who’d help slaughter almost everyone in the village he had once called home, his heart, or more accurately his hands, didn’t seem to want to listen to his head and he’d reached for the man more than he was proud of. Lancelot had never denied him, rather he’d always seemed enthusiastically consenting. It was just what soldiers did; Gawain would know, he’d warmed plenty of beds for one night and only one night in his past. It didn’t mean anything.

So why, then, did his heart skip three beats when he returned from his guard post to find Squirrel sat crossed legged on the floor next to the remains of last night’s campfire, with the Ash Man at his side, both bent over two large orange gourds with insistent focus in their eyes.

“What are you doing?” Gawain asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Lancelot’s teaching me how to carve pumpkins!” Squirrel grinned, spinning round the squash in front of him to show Gawain a slightly lopsided toothy face etched into the skin of the fruit.

Thankfully the knife that was in his hand seemed to be blunt enough that Gawain didn’t need to worry he was going to do himself any real damage with it, or he’d be having words with Lancelot about responsible parenting… Except of course he wouldn’t. Because the boy was not their son. They weren’t parenting anyone, especially not together.

Squirrel frowned, interpreting the look on Gawain’s face as one of disapproval in his design choice.

“Lancelot’s is better,” he sighed. “He’s good with a knife.”

The words struck Gawain right in the chest. Lancelot was indeed good with a knife – he’d seen the evidence. _I’ll slowly cut this fellow to pieces_. Bergarum had been his closest friend and, on occasion, the owner of one of the beds he’d shared. He had not been easy to lose. Gawain knew, on some level, that he should be horrified by the reminder, that it should compel him to never touch Lancelot again. But he couldn’t reconcile the man still sat before him, who hadn’t even lifted his eyes to meet his, so heavily ashamed by his past, with the cocky man who had gloated about his knife skills at Moycraig. When Gawain stepped behind him to take a look at his attempt at pumpkin carving, he was hardly surprised to find it vastly more refined that Squirrel’s. The lines were crisp and the detail fine, and the face eminently recognisable. He had to laugh.  
“She’ll have plenty to say when she sees that,” Gawain smirked.

Lancelot finally met his eyes, like he’d been waiting until he was sure he wouldn’t find hatred there. He smiled softly, but it betrayed the slightest hint of a smirk.

“It matched her hair,” he shrugged.

Gawain just laughed ever deeper. This was the Lancelot he was learning to love – the one who entertained Squirrel and made jokes and immortalised Pym in the form of a pumpkin carving, at least until the gourd rotted away.

“Please let me be there when you show her,” Gawain grinned, sitting down beside Squirrel to help him fine-tune his own creation. Lancelot’s hand brushed against his as he settled himself.

He could almost pretend there wasn’t a war going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pumpkin carving is not historically accurate, but so sue me :P


	28. Blood

Gawain was not, by any stretch of the imagination, qualified to be a healer. He didn’t have the patience or the steady hands or the bedside manner. The kind of first aid he knew how to do was basic, rough and functional – soldiers got an awful lot of wounds and it was only sensible that they knew how to dress them to avoid infection or stop brothers-in-arms bleeding out.

Common sense thus dictated that he should have taken Lancelot to Polly or, hell, even to Pym, when he found him wiping blood from his cheek as they passed each other on the trail that led down to the river. For a moment, Gawain wondered who the blood belonged to because the fact that it was Lancelot’s own certainly didn’t immediately occur to him. But when he scrubbed it away upon seeing Gawain stare, it only revealed a gash across his cheek, nothing that was life-threatening or even likely to scar but still enough to make Gawain’s stomach drop. Any scenario that featured Lancelot in pain tended to have that effect on him.

“What happened?” he asked insistently, pulling Lancelot off the path so they wouldn’t risk being in anyone’s way and scrutinising the cut.

“Nothing. It was my fault. I slipped on the rocks,” Lancelot mumbled, not making eye contact.

Gawain just scoffed. While the Ash Man _had_ turned out to be remarkably clumsy, he wasn’t the most adept liar. He’d kept his speech to a minimum for so long that he often struggled to manipulate it exactly the way he wanted to. It was endearing, most of the time, but it often revealed more than Lancelot would actually want to.

“Come on,” Gawain decided, putting a hand on Lancelot’s back to steer him back in the direction of the lake, where there were _apparently_ some very slippery rocks.

He had been planning a leisurely swim and a bath but evidently the universe had other plans. There were a few other Fey at the riverside doing laundry, but he made sure to keep their distance. He wasn’t done talking and Lancelot wouldn’t want an audience.

Gently – far gentler than he’d even been when patching up the wounds of fellow soldiers – Gawain cupped Lancelot’s cheek to turn his head so he could inspect the damage. It wasn’t too bad; the bleeding made it look far worse than it really was. Still, he didn’t like that it was there in the first place. He scooped up a handful of water to rinse it away to properly reveal the small cut, already blooming with fresh blood again.

“Are you going to tell me who threw the stone?” he asked calmly.

“What stone?”

“Don’t play stupid,” Gawain ordered sternly. “It’s assault and it’s against camp rules. Tell me who.”  
“It’s not like I didn’t deserve it,” Lancelot shrugged.

Gawain wanted to scream. Regardless of how much he tried, he could never get this man to realise that he didn’t deserve to be hurt. The Paladins had really done a number on him and they were lucky Gawain hadn’t seen a single one since Lancelot had settled into the camp, or he would have had their head for their troubles.

“No, you didn’t,” was all he said.

He knew he was going to get nowhere. Lancelot wouldn’t give up a name, not wanting to bring further wrath on himself for turning the assailant in - something which Gawain hated to admit he did understand. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a list of likely suspects as it was – he’d make sure to keep a closer eye on them. As it was he used his knife to carefully cut a strip of cloth from the bottom of his own tunic and used it to wipe away the new trails of blood, rising it out in the water and pressing it back over the cut.

“Hold that there,” he encouraged, taking Lancelot’s hand to lead it up to the impromptu dressing.

Polly would be so much better at this. She’d have all the right supplies and she wouldn’t ask questions Lancelot didn’t want to answer and she’d be quick and neat and efficient. But Gawain didn’t want to hand Lancelot off to someone else like that. He knew enough to be sure he wouldn’t hurt him and that the wound wasn’t deep enough to scar no matter how bad a job he did, so he was going to be selfish about it and care for the Ash Man himself. Knowing someone had hurt him, he couldn’t bear to let him out of his sight.


	29. Queen

Pym had never fancied herself Queen before. In all the different variations of her life she’d considered, it had never come up once. What had come up, was indeed almost constant in her thoughts, was the idea of staying at Nimue’s side. As her friend and then, after a slightly drunken confession and a very ungraceful kiss, as more than that. But even when Nimue herself became Fey Queen, Pym never made the connection that staying at her girlfriend’s side would one day mean that she too might become somewhat of a queen herself.

It started before it was official. They hadn’t had a Joining and Pym certainly wasn’t even _thinking_ of asking Nimue if she’d be amiable to the idea yet, but somehow Pym still became a consort. The first time a knight had nodded to her and greeted her with ‘Your Majesty’, she’d just about choked on air. She got bowed to by Fey she’d never even met before (and, tellingly, not by those she had. Gawain was still more likely to throw her in the river than bow to her), and people seemed to actually care about her opinions, as if they were those of a ruler.

She still wasn’t much of a fighter. Lancelot’s archery lessons had been instructive and she could handle herself in a fight, as long as that fight was happening at a distance, but she was no knight. She’d never trust herself to protect Nimue’s life. Still, she made herself useful at her lover’s side. Her strengths were in people, in organising resources and understanding what the Fey needed even if they wouldn’t ask for it outright. Either implicitly or explicitly, people would ask her for things and she would always manage to make solutions happen. It took Kaze to point out how much of a help that was to Nimue before Pym realised.

The day she did marry Nimue, when the war was long over and the Fey were able to live in peace and govern themselves, that was the first time she’d ever _felt_ like a Queen. It probably had something to do with the flowing dress and the flowers braided in her hair and the delicate copper circlet that crowned her. Nimue had never looked so regal either, her own dress embroidered heavily with wildflowers and her smile radiant. Pym never wanted to look anywhere else again, if taking in that smile was an option.

When they met before Gawain, who had promised to deliver the Joining ceremony with minimal teasing, Pym couldn’t help but immediately reach for Nimue’s hand.

“You look beautiful,” she managed, tears roughing up the words a little.

Nimue just brushed them away gently with her thumb.

“So you do, my Queen,” she whispered back.

Pym just laughed, but Nimue wasn’t speaking in jest. Being the Fey Queen was certainly an honour, and not a job she took lightly, but she knew she couldn’t do it without Pym. They kept each other going, kept each other sane, and together they could manage to face just about anything that queendom could throw their way.


	30. Legend

They were drowsy, lazy and post-coital when Lancelot brought it up. He’d learned that it was the perfect time to ask Gawain questions he was shy of wanting genuine answers from, when his knight was too sated to judge him and too tired to play coy. Anything he said would be the honest truth, which was exactly what Lancelot was after.

“Do you think we will be remembered?” he asked quietly, tracing one of the many scars that decorated Gawain’s chest.  
“By who?” Gawain hummed, his voice a little rough.

Lancelot blushed to hear him sound so wrecked, knowing full well what had caused it. That _he_ had caused it. He ducked his head a little, replacing his fingertips with his lips, so he could hide his cheeks.

“By anyone,” he mumbled, the words half lost to Gawain’s skin

It seemed like an odd topic of conversation but Gawain was happy to indulge his boyfriend’s inanity, especially when the world felt like it had shrunk down to just the two of them. He pondered the question. They were already being remembered, in a way – he recalled the chalk drawings of the Green Knight on the wall at Nemos, or the Wolf Blood Witch chants he still heard sung by children. Both told the stories of mythic figures, not of the flesh-and-blood Fey that they were, all mistakes and bad decisions and messy lives. The stories that lived on ignored all of that. There was always kernel of truth at the heart, but the fact was far over-shadowed by fiction.

“I’d dare to say we might be, but likely not as we are,” Gawain shrugged, pondering on what their legacy would be in 10, 50, or even 100 years. He hoped the enduring image of his lover would be a positive one. The idea that his time with the Red Paladins might be what lived on was painful to consider, so he quickly tried to lighten his own mood. “Looking to become a legend, Sir Lancelot?” he teased.

“I am not a knight,” Lancelot replied, almost on autopilot. They had had this conversation a lot.  
“You will be, the moment you permit me to do it. It is how you deserve to be remembered,” Gawain said, his voiced hushed in a way that made it sound reverent.

He’d been wanting to knight Lancelot for months – he’d more than proven himself as the greatest warrior the Fey had ever seen and his loyalty to them was unquestionable. But he always refused, claiming he didn’t deserve it after what he had done. It was what they fought most often about, but neither of them were particularly keen to restart the debate while they were both some contented.

“I only want them to remember this,” Lancelot sighed, lacing his fingers through Gawain’s. “That you loved me.”

Gawain smiled indulgently and pressed a kiss to Lancelot’s shoulder, the closest part of him he could reach without jostling his lover. When he spoke, the words were warm against Lancelot’s skin.  
“I don’t see how they could possibly forget.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my mind this is a very sad fic because of how commonly historical queers have their identities erased, but it probably doesn't read like that to most :')


	31. Good Knight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tie-in for this fic - https://archiveofourown.org/works/26138575/chapters/63591157

Every time they finished getting the kids to bed and the house was finally silent, Gawain would sit there and wonder how they did it. Squirrel mostly took care of Nessa, of course, but that still left them with Rowan, Tristan and Lenore and each of them was a trial in their own unique way. There were frequent arguments, tantrums and tears, from at least one of them each night. It was like the coordinated it – if two were sleepy and amiable to be tucked in for the night, the third would raise hell about it. It was testing, no doubt, and certainly exhausting but Gawain couldn’t help but take immense happiness in it, because it felt like they were destined to be siblings.

It was Lenore’s turn to kick up a fuss and, from what Gawain could hear from where he was trying to convince Tristan there were definitely no monsters under his bed, she was adamant she wasn’t tired. He couldn’t hear Lancelot’s reply, since he had elected not to scream it unlike his daughter, but he seemed to have the whole thing under control. By the time Gawain had tucked in their two well-behaved children, at least on that particular night, and headed over to help his husband out with their elected Demon of the Evening, she seemed to have settled down. In fact she was balled up under the covers, sucking her thumb and listening intently to the last few words of the story she was being told, which seemed to be about Auntie Pym and Auntie Nimue saving the world. Lancelot had proven himself quite the storyteller, although it had been very much a ‘learn or die’ situation when it came to perfecting a good night story.  
Gawain watched from the doorframe as Lancelot got to the part where they lived happily ever after and kissed Lenore on the forehead. Squirrel ducked past him to put Nella down in her cot, sensing the loudness was over and that the little one wouldn’t be woken by her aunt’s screams. He tried to wriggle out just as silently but Gawain caught him and pulled him in for a one-armed hug. The boy was twenty-one and unlikely to be around the house for much longer, especially with how cramped it was getting, but he was still a child in Gawain’s eyes, even if he had one of his own now.

“Goodnight, kid,” he mumbled, not wanting to wake either of the girls.

“Yeah, yeah, goodnight,” Squirrel laughed, squirming away. He knew his father was getting sentimental and he didn’t want to stick around long enough for him to start reminiscing about the ‘good old days’ when he had been as young as Rowan was.

Gawain let him go, if only because Lancelot had finished up and was more than willing to fill the space in his arms.

“You’re a miracle-worker,” Gawain whispered. “I thought it would be hours before she was out. Sorry I didn’t come and help sooner.”

Lancelot just shrugged.

“It was nothing.”

He downplayed quite how good a father he was most of the time, but Gawain couldn’t be fooled. Lancelot had always cared for children, even when his entire life was built around genocide and destruction. Something in him just recognised their innate goodness, their potential to become _anything_ , and had to let that see itself through. It was more than natural that he’d be just as protective, if not ten times over, with his own children, and he was. Gawain was certain he would do anything for them. They both would. Looking down at their daughter and their granddaughter, and knowing their three sons slept soundly nearby, Gawain couldn’t help but smile.

“Is this what the Weeping Monk thought his future would look like?” he teased.

“Not for a second,” Lancelot admitted. “But if anyone tries to take it from me, I will kill them.”

“And I’ll be right there at your side, my love,” Gawain promised, pressing a kiss to the corner of Lancelot’s mouth.

Then he tugged him in the direction of their own room, hellbent on trying to get a decent night of sleep. Because tomorrow they were going to have to do this all again but, truthfully, Gawain wouldn’t swap it for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it!! Thank you so much to anyone who read and left kudos and commented, it really means a lot <3 I hope you all enjoyed at least one of these!


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